Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 56
March 4, 2011
why do writers never finish novels or worse, destroy them?
Why would a novel be, in Chabon's parlance, "wrecked"? Authors, always sensitive creatures, might abandon a book in a fit of despair, as Stephenie Meyer initially did in 2008 with her "Twilight" spinoff "Midnight Sun," which she declared herself "too sad" to finish after 12 chapters leaked to the Internet. More dramatically, in 1925 Evelyn Waugh burned his unpublished first novel, "The Temple at Thatch," and attempted to drown himself in the sea after a friend gave it a bad review. (Stung by jellyfish, Waugh soon returned to shore.) More dramatically still, Nikolai Gogol died a mere 10 days after burning the manuscript of "Dead Souls II," for the second time.
via nytimes.com
I found this article fascinating and so reassuring! I abandoned my first novel. I just couldn't figure out how to write it. I could do it now, but I don't really have any interest in writing a story across the generations, nor did I then really. It was just all the what-ifs and why is she/he this way that got out of hand then.
And there was my Soviet novel, never completed though the research was fascinating because the research taught me how bleak and hopeless and utterly unromantic the Eastern front had been.
And my Chicago 1/2 novel, which got cut out of my London novel, and replaced, well, by London. My favourite bit of it is here.
So all is not lost!
Filed under: Miscellany
Allan Ahlberg Collected Poems
I was browsing a (physical) bookstore and found this collection illustrated by Charlotte Voake.
This is the poem that made me buy it (p 112):
Worlds
by Allan Ahlberg
The first world
Was made of paper.
God screwed it up in a ball.
It would not do at all.
The second world
Was made of ice-cream,
Fudge flavour mostly,
In a delicate (8,000-mile diameter) wafer cup.
God ate it up.
The third world
Was made of modelling clay.
God baked it in the oven
And gave it to his grandma.
The nineth world
Was made of house bricks,
Artfully arranged.
God won second prize
In a competition with it.
The twelfth world
Was made – woven, actually -
Of magic carpet material.
It commuted between here and there.
There were two billion
Uncomplicated if somewhat wind-blown
People on it.
The thirteenth world
Was perfect.
God put it down somewhere
And has been looking for it
Ever since.
The twenty-fifth world
Was made of a miraculous new substance
With mind-boggling properties.
It had an unfortunate smell, though,
Like rarely opened wardrobes.
The thirtieth world
Was made of dirt and water
Day and night
Grass
Trees
Bungalows
Odd socks
Incomplete jigsaw puzzles
Volcanoes
Fluff
Happiness and boredom
Wedding rings
General elections
Telephone books
And me and you.
God said that it would do.
Filed under: Literary Tagged: poetry of Allan Ahlberg
no 2 sides when it comes to kids' health
No doubt, many of you who will watch this evening's program, on the faulty link between vaccinations and autism, will be angry. Disgraced British researcher Andrew Wakefield published an explosive study in The Lancet leading many to believe certain vaccines could cause autism. You'll think this program is biased and that we did not do our due diligence by getting Wakefield's side of the story. But you would be wrong. There are no two sides to this story.
via tvo.org
Sandra Gionas of The Agenda unequivocally explains how deceit and fraud mushroomed into kids going unvaccinated.
The vaccination "debate" drives me crazy. There's no debate between fact and fraud.
The kids who go unvaccinated don't get sick because other kids are vaccinated. But if the rate drops low enough, those diseases will resurge (and the prevalence rate has gone up already). And those diseases killed and debilitated many people in the days before vaccination. But the mythical connection between vaccination and autism has got so deeply rooted that it's become part of normal discourse between parents. "Do you vaccinate?" is something I've been routinely asked.
This reminds me of creationism but that, at least, has only the potential of resulting in kids raised in ignorance, not becoming deaf, blind or brain damaged. Ignorance is rather more easily cured.
Filed under: Concerning Tagged: Arthur Wakefield lied
writing in the margins, from quill to ebooks
According to the marginalia scholar H. J. Jackson, the golden age of marginalia lasted from roughly 1700 to 1820. The practice, back then, was surprisingly social — people would mark up books for one another as gifts, or give pointedly annotated novels to potential lovers. Old-school marginalia was — to put it into contemporary cultural terms — a kind of slow-motion, long-form Twitter, or a statusless, meaning-soaked Facebook, or an analog, object-based G-chat. (Nevermind: it was social, is my point.)
via nytimes.com
The author goes on to speculate and fantasize about how marginalia could similarly be shared in the electronic age. My reaction to his excitement over a twitter-like sharing of marginalia is one of overwhelm. How much can a person absorb? But read it for yourself and let me know what you think.
Filed under: Literary Tagged: electronic marginalia
March 3, 2011
bilingual babies learn more than language
Under 8 mo, they learn new rules faster, recognize language even on mute. http://ow.ly/47nDf
Filed under: Miscellany
March 2, 2011
library speed dating from Europe to San Fran
clutching favourite books, singles look for romantic reading mates http://ow.ly/46R6w
Filed under: Miscellany
on curing everything
interview with nobel prize winning chemist on developing alternative to antibiotics. http://ow.ly/46QPD
Filed under: Miscellany
teenager, timbuktu–photo
via photography.nationalgeographic.com
High heels is the style of choice in the only high school, which is combating an illiteracy rate of 74%.
Filed under: Miscellany
town square freedom: israeli author rejoices over changing mid-east
To understand the tumultuous upheaval in the Middle East in 2011, let me recommend a brilliant but admittedly surprising and even unlikely book that forecasted how events in the region might unfold and now provides a coherent approach to shaping the outcome of the turmoil. It is The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, by Natan Sharansky
via theatlantic.com
From a surprising source, a Soviet protester become Israeli politician, comes insight into the current volatility in the Middle-East. Click on the link for the full story.
Filed under: Miscellany
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