Alex Kudera's Blog, page 29

Jon Lee Anderson returns to Haiti

Jon Lee Anderson's most recent dispatch from Haiti is worth reading. At L.U.S.K., his presence there was noted at least once before. Haiti needs help.

I have not read these books

I have not read any of the 2023 Booker nominees, and I believe that I had only heard of one of the authors before the list was presented. At the library I checked for physical copies in New Fiction and found one out of the four to five that I looked for; this was when they were soon to close last night.

Whom or who, again?

"Number two: the 'who' or 'whom' business. This is very slightly trickier. 'John, whom I know to be an honourable man' is right; 'John, whom I know is an honourable man' is wrong. Here's what you do: you mentally recast the subclauses as main clauses — 'I know him to be an honourable man', 'I know he is an honourable man' — and your ear will guide you: 'him' demands 'whom', and 'he' demands 'who' . . . In conversational prose be wary of whom. In the closing pages of Herzog, Bellow writes, 'Whom was I kidding?' This is grammatically correct; it also leaves the sentence up on one stilt. 'Whom the fuck d'you think you're looking at?' Or even worse, 'At whom the fuck d'you think you're looking?' Never worry about ending a sentence with a preposition. 'That rule', Churchill famously said, 'is the kind of pedantry up with which I will not put.'"

~~ from Inside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis

Happy Birthday

A rock star was born on this day.

an obvious moral and economic fiasco

"But Rabbit [Angstrom] was saying what almost all Americans say, or whisper: the more you earn the longer you deserve to live. For-profit healthcare is such an obvious moral and economic fiasco that only ideology — in the form of inherited and unexamined beliefs — could possibly explain its survival."

~~ from Inside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis

through application

"'It's strange. No one behaves worse or talks more balls than Norman [Mailer], but he's widely liked . . . The question remains. Why don't Jews drink?'

"'Well, it's the same with Jewish achievement in general,' said Saul [Bellow] (as his drink arrived). And that achievement is disproportionate. [Albert] Einstein put it pretty well. The great error is to think it's somehow innate. That way anti-Semitism lies. It isn't innate. It's to do with how you're raised. All good Jewish children know that the way to impress their elders is through application. Not sports, not physical strength or physical beauty, and not the arts. Through learning and studying.'"

~~ from Inside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis

she does drive you mad

"'You know, I've got four brothers. All younger. And not one of them'll touch her with a fucking bargepole. They won't have anything to do with her. It's true the old -- she does drive you mad, there's no question. But you've got to grind it out, haven't you. And the four of them, they won't go near her. Can you credit it? They won't go near their own fucking mum. Pardon the language. Well, they haven't got my resources, admittedly. So answer me this. Where would she be without my suppo rt?'"

~~ from Inside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis

Hessler, Gottlieb, Hemon

At the library, I played hooky from Harper's Magazine and read about John Dewey's influence and Peter Hessler's twins in Chengdu, China as well as Robert Gottlieb's literary life and Aleksandar Hemon's variations in The New York Review of Books. The Gottlieb was the one I initially interrupted the Hessler for, and it appeared to be more than a coincidence when I learned within a few sentences that Gottlieb passed on June 14—a birthday Hessler shares with a certain former president.

Bellow's auto-fiction

"In Saul's case, auto-fiction gave rise to weeklong bouts of sleepless anxiety about lawsuits (he made last-minute proof changes, he asked people to sign waivers) — plus family troubles (with father and eldest brother), broken or suspended friendships, the deepening rancour of ex-wives and ex-lovers, and above all the indecipherable disquiet of children. It is morally treacherous ground, and Bellow himself thought the question 'diabolically complex'. Diabolically complex, and — I would've thought — fatally self-shackling. Fiction is freedom? Well, the life-writer seems to be crying out for boundaries and impediments and restraints. Crying out for them — nevertheless inviting them in."
~~ from Inside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis

Turbulence

"The sun was out, shining down through a thin haze, and they sweated lightly as they stood over their shots. Abhijit had a maddening ability to make the ones that mattered and he was soon several shots ahead. Abir was obviously out of sorts. He felt the match slipping away as he pathetically missed short putts, then missed them again, and finally sent several shots in quick succession into the weed-filled lake. When the fourth one found the water, he just dropped the iron onto the turf and walked away."
~~ from Turbulence by David Szalay