Isak

Quick Hit: Morbid Charles Dickens

Drawing from the new "biography of a writer as writer" from Yale University Press, Adam Thirwell's essay on Charles Dickens in The New Republic turns on the dark dimensions of the author who was by turns a mimic, a moralizer, a magician, a manic, and a mope.

The Countdown Continues

I've been rolling right along with my passionate case for why I love sports at Bitch Magazine, coming down with #3 last night--which turned a little personal because it is the very first reason I became a fan. Catch up on the whole story:

#10: Sports are community-building

#9: Sports celebrate physical intelligence

#8: Sports are one of the few realms where adults play

#7: Sports are inherently optimistic

#6: Sports honor their history

#5: Sports are aesthetically beautiful

#4: Sports carry the power of stories and storytelling

#3: Sports are a venue to connect with people who are very different than you

Oh, and that picture above? I took it from the bleacher seats last summer while cheering on the Tigers in beautiful Comerica Park in downtown Detroit. Makes me excited for the summer nights of the upcoming season ... even though my very favorite player of all has gone to the Evil Side (not his fault, he was traded), a fact that--I must be blunt--makes me want to puke. Despite what the series I've been writing implies, it's not all joy being a sports fan, that's for sure. </rant>

A selected set of other sports pieces I've written as part of this guest-blogging stint:

• Illinois Man Pleads Guilty to Stalking ESPN's Erin Andrews
• Notre Dame Hires Pro-Choice Catholic as New Football Coach
• Dana Vollmer is Fierce
• To Be A Title IX Dad
• Will Diana Taurasi Be The---ahem--Sportsman of the Year?
• Carly Welch Takes It Up a Notch
• Laura Ricketts Is First Openly Gay Owner Of A Pro Team
• "In the Name of First Ascents and Cultural Connection"
• Expect Great
  

Speaking: Adrienne Rich

Still, as a poet, I choose to sieve up old, sunken words, heave them, dripping with silt, turn them over, and bring them into the air of the present. Where every public decision has to be justified in the scales of corporate profits, poetry unsettles these apparently self-evident propositions--not through ideology, but by its very presence and ways of being, its embodiment of states of longing and desire.

    --Adrienne Rich, Preface, What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry & Politics

Image Credit: WW Norton

Liz Coleman Calls to Reinvent Liberal Education

Another treasure from the TED trove, this one featuring Bennington College President Liz Coleman. She calls for a radical re-orientation of higher education, drawing from her experience of transforming her own campus under the idea that "higher education is active pursuit -- a performing art."

An excerpt that was especially striking:

Over the past century, the expert has dethroned the educated generalist to become the sole model of intellectual accomplishment ... The progression of today's college student is to jettison every interest except one, and in that one to continue to narrow the focus, learning more and more about less and less. This, despite the evidence all around us about the interconnectedness of things.

Get Your Collagist Right Here

The December issue of The Collagist is up and out and looking great. My video book review takes on All Fall Down, by Mary Caponegro (Coffee House Press) --- a collection of stories that incited strong and mixed feelings.

UPDATE: Adam Robinson at HTMLGiant has nice things to say after reading the latest issue of The Collagist:

This is a must read online journal. Every issue so far has struck me with how completely realized it is, how each piece — especially the stories and non-fiction — is smooth and well-thunk, creating a total, culturally relevant package. I mean, seriously, like, this journal is quickly surpassing big lit joints on the order of The Paris Review and becoming something that it seems all intelligent people (and not just writers) ought to care about. Also, it strikes me that The Collagist is calmly answering the question about how an online magazine ought to differ from a print publication. While much of the work there is, y’know, just a story that could easily appear on the page, they also feature a video book review by Anna Clark. Now the video even has some chintzy music to start the thing, and then incorporates images of the author and contextual pics interspersed with the reviewer talking about and reading from the book in question. Pretty cool. I like that they don’t rely on comments or links to make it hypertextual.

Round-Up: Literary Indulgences

Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books are both awesome and relevant to today's girls, says The Washington Times.

Mati Unt's Brecht at Night is one of the "Best of 2009: Bookseller's Choice" over at the Barnes & Noble Review. I reviewed Unt's fabulous novel at The Collagist.

Laura Miller picks out her favorite books of the decade over at Salon. I agree with her especially on the titles by Kelly Link, Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Pollan, and Allison Bechdel.

Book World at The Washington Post puts together a holiday guide that names the best nonfiction and fiction titles of the year, along with a "Top Ten." The paper's hosting an online discussion about the lists tomorrow; you can submit your questions and comments here.

Seymour Hersh calls for support of investigative journalists worldwide.

Ebony Magazine spotlights ten old and new classics to revisit for our times.

Genius poet Heather McHugh in the WaPo.

The Huffington Post continues to be creepy: it offers paid comments and paid Tweets. (I wrote earlier about my discontent with HuffPo here.)

An article at The Guardian has incited quite a conversation about "major" and "minor" classics.

The "Year in Reading" series over at The Millions keeps getting better and better.

BOMB Magazine features a conversation between Venezuelan novelists Francisco Suniaga and Federico Vegas.

"Mirth and melancholy" are the trademarks of this year's best memoirs, says NPR.

The Dzanc Books Write-a-Thon is coming up!

Author and lit blogger Laila Lalami write about the Swiss minaret ban for The Nation. She asks: "What are voters really trying to outlaw?"

On Democracy Now!, author and journalist Naomi Klein discusses the mass movement for climate justice.

Choose Books:The Top Ten Magazine Gift Subscriptions

Why Choose Books for your gifts this holiday season? Glad you asked. It's because there are few things more fun than giving someone a book they fall in love with; it lasts longer and matters more than, say, necklaces or sweaters, while rarely being more than about fifteen dollars. What's more, your purposeful choice of books, purchased from indie booksellers, supports a vibrant and dynamic literary culture in a time when the book world is struggling and even literacy is horrifically low. Choose Books because you really can make a difference. Choose Books because it is joyful.

In this series, you can look forward an ongoing guide to books as gifts; at the end of the season, it will be collected as an attractive PDF for you to download. More than a mere list of my personal favorites, Choose Books is outward-looking, featuring outstanding books of very different styles for very different tastes (and ages). Learn more about this series here. 

The Top Ten Magazine Gift Subscriptions

This year, consider giving the gift of ideas. When you offer a gift subscription to an outstanding magazine, you aren't just sending a source of delight to the recipient's mailbox throughout the next year. You are also delivering the opportunity to participate in the public conversation, to catalyze the imagination, and to tap into new ways of thinking. At the same time, you get the chance to disseminate favorite periodicals into the world, strengthening support for the brightest lights on the newsstand. It is one of my favorite items to give. There are literally hundreds of excellent opportunities for magazines as gifts; here is what you need to know about ten of them.

1. The Sun

Tagline: Personal. Political. Provocative. Ad-Free.

Details: 12 issues/year. Founded in 1974 and remains an independent nonprofit publication. Publishes essays, interviews, fiction, poetry, photography, "The Dog-Eared Page," and its famous "Readers Write" section.

Recent articles:  "Who Will Heal the Healers? Pamela Wible on What's Missing from Healthcare Reform"; "Eighteen Attempts at Writing About a Miscarriage"; "Selected Poems: Tony Hoagland"; "Readers Write: Selling Out"; "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered"; "Spring Comes to New Jersey."

Gift Subscriptions: First one-year subscription is $36; each additional gift is $25 (30% off the regular price). Each recipient gets a card announcing the gift. If you are already a subscriber and renew now, all gift subscriptions are 30% off.

Trademarks: No ads in any issue; the magazine depends on subscription support. Beautifully designed, and features outstanding writing animated by hope. As it describes itself, The Sun uses "words and photographs to invoke the splendor and heartache of being human."

Consider this as a gift for: Idealists. People who are fed up with a culture of soundbites and summary, who long for expansive perspectives. Artists.

See the other nine spotlighted gift subscriptions after the jump.

The Auction of Your Dreams

It's the last day to bid in WAM! Online Benefit Auction! Have you bid yet? Every bid supports gender justice in media ... oh, and you get awesome items and experiences in return for yourself or as a stunning holiday gift. Such as:

• Chances to meet Tegan and Sara, Lily Tomlin, Cyndi Lauper, and Margaret Cho at upcoming shows
• Dinner with Maria Hinojosa (my hero!) and/or Jessica Valenti
• Training from The Op-Ed Project
• Original DTWOF comic strip art from Fun Home creator Alison Bechdel
Chances for Girlyman or Sarah Haskins to record your voicemail message
A Hot Air Balloon Ride for 2
Whitewater rafting in Maine for 4
Tickets to the Tony Awards (includes two nights in a hotel)
Signed guitars from Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Ani Difranco, and Aimee Mann
• Expert editorial advice from WAM!mers Kate Harding, Rebecca Traister, and Katha Pollitt
A Tour of The Onion offices, plus lunch with Baratunde Thurston
Tons of bookish stuff from writers like Marjane Satrapi, Jane Hamilton, bell hooks, Sarah Waters, Marge Piercy, Jennifer Weiner, Molly Ivins, Melissa Harris Lacewell ... whew! ... among others.

Bidding ends TONIGHT at 9PM ET - so don't wait. Get that perfect gift for yourself or someone you love.

Second Round for The Second Sex: A New Translation of de Beauvoir's Masterpiece

Back when I read Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, in the very early days of this website, I had this to say about it:

This book is peculiar and dense--heartening and illuminating at points; at others odd, what with its 50-year-old biology. Also strange is the experience of reading a book that I've already read so much about; I almost felt like I already had an opinion about it before I opened its covers. I'm still working on reading de Beauvoir for herself, outside of (her) cultural weight as a historical icon ... But the fact is, this woman is brimming with ideas, and she is clearly taking pains to explore her questions deeply. She begins with her hook--"What is a woman?"--and doesn't let go.

A huge portion of that "peculiarity" was due to the fact that the single English translation of de Beauvoir's masterpiece is generally considered to be very, very poor. While the author's brilliance can't be masked even by a patchy translator, crucial pieces of de Beauvior's philosophy--and all-around coherence--were lost when a Smith College zoologist took to rendering her book in English. The existentialism that was a key part of de Beauvoir's thinking (she was, incidentally, married to involved for decades with Jean-Paul Sartre) was lost by a translation process that simply didn't get it. The reason a zoologist was recruited to translate it was because folks thought The Second Sex was a popular sex manual for young women--a sort of female version of the Kinsey report. Also? The translator cut 20% of the book.

Given this, many feminist scholars in particular requested the opportunity to do a new translation of The Second Sex, one that is more accurate and more nuanced. Knopf said no, believing its audience to be too limited (never mind that this book is a mainstay on college syllabi). So those of us who don't read French were stuck with the shards of de Beauvior's philosophy buried in the English version. Until now.

The new English translation of The Second Sex was published in the UK last week by the publisher Jonathan Cape--just in time for the sixtieth anniversary of the book's original 1949 printing. The American edition is set for publication in April 2010. The new translators are Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier.

Why the change of heart? Sarah Glazer, whose writing did much to renew the momentum for a new translation, offers an overview in Bookforum. Le Monde has another, more recent, one. But the gist is that the anniversary of the book's publication, combined with the passion Jonathan Cape and the translators brought to the project, made it work.

So what's the new edition like? I have yet to see a copy myself, and I can't wait for it. But here's what Siobhan Murphy has to say in a British paper:

For its 60th  anniversary, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier have created an unabridged and unsimplified translation revealing de Beauvoir's intelligent examination of the question 'what is a woman?' in all its glory.

Even when it was ill-served by its translator, The Second Sex profoundly resonated--as Toril Moi put it in her great profile of it in The Guardian--and earned descriptives like "groundbreaking." It pulses with energetic philosophy in her discussion of the limits of abstract freedom, of the difference between the "One" and the "Other," the strange weight put on behavior and social allegiances, and it was ahead of its time on challenging the gender binary: "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman," she writes.

Now that there's a new and more accurate, nuanced, clear version of de Beauvoir's vision, now that it is amplified, I can't wait to see its influence renewed, reshaped, and initiated all over again.

UPDATE: At BBC4, journalist Janine di Giovanni discusses the significance of The Second Sex, this new translation, and its relevance for contemporary readers.

Interview: Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky

Cued by the publication of their newest book, I had the very great pleasure of interviewing two of my literary heroes, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, for The Millions.

An excerpt from my introduction:

When I found out that I had the opportunity to interview the translators, I was giddy as a girlish Beatles fan circa 1964.

As the bestselling and award-winning translators of sixteen great works of Russian literature, Pevear and Volokhonsky are something of a rock star duo in the literary world. The fluency of their translations, grounded in a nuanced understanding of the time and place that the source texts were written, have given cause for many of us to fall more deeply in love with The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Notes from Underground, The Master and Margarita, Dead Souls, and the fiction of Anton Chekhov, among many others. The pair have been working together since 1986 ... As a duo, they were twice awarded the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. Their 2004 translation of Anna Karenina was an Oprah’s Book Club pick.

The couple, who are married and live in Paris, added a new title to their oeuvre just last month: The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories, by Leo Tolstoy. The collection includes eleven glittering and strange tales, among them “The Kreutzer Sonata,” “Master and Man,” “The Prisoner of the Caucasus,” and the novella Hadji Murat, which was Tolstoy’s final work. While Pevear and Volokhonsky have previously translated the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, and Nikolai Gogol, this is their first turn at the stories of Tolstoy. The ones they’ve chosen are largely from Tolstoy’s later years; together, the stories wrestle with questions of war, honor, death, sex, obsession, resentment, redemption, crime, and innocence. Seven of the stories collected were never published in Tolstoy’s lifetime.

In our conversation, Pevear and Volokhonsky discuss the greatest misconceptions about Tolstoy; the reason for the minuscule rate of translated fiction in the U.S.; the books they'd most love to see translated; the writer they've expressly chosen not to translate; and, of course, the best books that they've read for pleasure.

Check out the full piece here.

UPDATE: "In this way translation, which is a dialogue between languages, also becomes a dialogue in time, a fresh response to the ongoing life of the original." Pevear and Volokhonsky write about translating "Tolstoy's Stories" in The Huffington Post.