My father was a skilled and productive writer. He published many novels, including the recently reissued National Book Award nominee The Balloonist. There were a few non-fiction books as well: some early scholarly work about Italian literature, a book about solo sailing around the world, and a series of literature study guides for students with [...]
Dale Peck body-slams cheap, decayed postmodernism: …But as I puzzled my way through this and the rest of Moody’s books, I found myself looking not for the place in their execution or conception where they went wrong, but rather for something even prior and more primary: the wrong turn in our culture that led to [...]
The word implies aristocracy, wealth, romance, opulence, and a continuous social scene of balls and parties and comings-out. The legacy of ten thousand Jane Austen imitators has made a million prides and prejudices into a story form called simply “a Regency.” And the frothy effortless wealth implied in that word has glued it to every [...]
O excellent! I love webinar better than figs. Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from? Get your own quotes:
I knew Philip Pullman was a fan of my dad’s work; an interview with him that ended up in The Week caused some friendly interest and was much appreciated. Apparently he’s really, really a fan. Woo!
My dad told the one in which Lawrence’s widow Frieda and her Fascist Italian army officer lover left Lawrence’s ashes at a railway station platform in an excess of passionate disorganization. Some of the other stories are below. LAWRENCE was buried in the old Vence cemetery on a March 1930. His remains were exhumed in [...]
There is no force, however great To pull a wire, however fine Into a horizontal line That shall be absolutely straight – Unknown Stone walls do not a prism make They’re better made of glass If you had studied Science You would not be such an ass – My father
edit: fixed markup so it actually makes cognitive sense I didn’t like Vonnegut. He had one good book in him (Slaughterhouse-Five) and then he kept writing it again. Norman Mailer had a similar trajectory. The war, then The Naked and the Dead, followed by celebrity and admiration and a string of terrible books. Vonnegut had [...]
Hello from Amazon.com. We are pleased to report that the following item will ship sooner than expected: Thomas Pynchon “Untitled Thomas Pynchon” [Hardcover] Availability: This title will be released on November 21, 2006.
This is interesting. Michael Chabon was a student of my father’s in the UCI MFA program more than 20 years ago. He’s been a family friend since, and I also admire his writing. In his website column this week he writes about the value of the program. He’s given props to my dad before by [...]