Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 12

HARRY MULISCH DIES

Harry Mulisch, the great Dutch novelist, has died at 83.

The Assault brought Mulisch to the attention of the English-speaking world, but it was not until the publication of The Discovery of Heaven, in 1992, that Mulisch's international reputation was secured. A 900-page saga of divine intervention in which an angel-like being is given the task of returning to heaven the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, the book was an extended mediation on topics ranging from astronomy to philology, theology and architecture. In a poll published in 2007 Dutch readers voted it the best Dutch novel ever written.

For those new to Mulisch, check out his NLPVF page and his page at the Complete Review.

PULLING NO PUNCHES

Saul Bellow was "possibly at his most Jewish" in his letters, according to Jonathan Wilson.

Saul Bellow's letters, the last reproduced in the newly-released Saul Bellow: Letters written in February 2004, a year before his death, already have an antique flavor. They are beautifully wrought dusty figures in the carpet before the avalanche of emails and tweets that await us. Which is not to say that the letters aren't vital and combative, no punches pulled from beginning to end. He starts early on in adult life bashing Mary McCarthy, and at 83 he's still got the balls to let Philip Roth know what's wrong with I Married a Communist. But honesty for Bellow is almost always a measure of friendship. And if you dish it out you have to be ready to take it; and take it he does. Sadly, we can't get his correspondents' p.o.v., but we deduce from Bellow's replies who's swinging for him and who isn't.

WEEKEND READ: PARKS ON ROTH

Tim Parks places Nemesis in the context of Roth's late work.

Since The Dying Animal in 2001 Roth has alternated between protagonists of his own age (The Dying Animal, Everyman, Exit Ghost, The Humbling) and young men on the brink of adulthood (Indignation, Nemesis). All were born around the same time as Roth, so that the novels of old age are set in the contemporary world and the novels of young adulthood in the 1940s and 1950s. Each of these short books offers a new take on what is essentially the same plot: something happens out of the blue and a state of fear is induced (in The Humbling Axler has lost his acting talent; in Nemesis there is a polio epidemic); the fear heightens the desire to live. In particular, it heightens the erotic drive: 'I was determined to have intercourse before I died,' Marcus says in Indignation. Eros and Thanatos are never allowed to lose sight of each other; and will eventually be brought into sharp juxtaposition as the story closes in catastrophe; having dreamed of a connubial happiness that might reconcile him to lost artistic powers, Axler is abandoned by his new woman and promptly kills himself.

SCRIVENER BETA TRIAL

I wrote Harry, Revised using plain old Microsoft Word, but I am writing my new novel using Scrivener and I am completely devoted to it.  It's an incredibly flexible tool, and it's helping me arrange a book that I am not writing in a linear fashion (unlike Harry).

Why is this relevant to any of you?  Because Lifehacker is reporting an extended trial of the beta versions of both Scrivener's new Windows product (until now it's only been available for the Mac) and the 2.0 version of the Mac product.  The free period is set to coincide with NaNoWriMo and expires early December.  The software is 45 bucks and it's life changing, so if you've been struggling with getting your manuscript organized (or under way), I strongly urge you to give Scrivener a whirl.  (And no, this is not a paid endorsement!)

A GREAT, GASPING, SIGHING, BREATHING WHOLE

I've heard absolutely nothing but good things from everyone I've encountered about Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad.  Cathleen Schine adds her voice in the NYRB:

Jennifer Egan's new novel is a moving humanistic saga, an enormous nineteenth-century-style epic brilliantly disguised as ironic postmodern pastiche. It has thirteen chapters, each an accomplished short story in its own right; characters who meander in and out of these chapters, brushing up against one another's lives in unexpected ways; a time frame that runs from 1979 to the near, but still sci-fi, future; jolting shifts in time and points of view—first person, second person, third person, Powerpoint person; and a social background of careless and brutal sex, careless and brutal drugs, and carefully brutal punk rock. All of this might be expected to depict the broken, alienated angst of modern life as viewed through the postmodern lens of broken, alienated irony. Instead, Egan gives us a great, gasping, sighing, breathing whole.

Sorta bums me out that Egan's was the rare title that failed to find its way to Chez TEV, so I can't comment firsthand, but the book's boosters have convinced me to tag this one "Worthy Titles" ...

MOTEV SPEAKS

It's been a while since we heard from MOTEV in these precincts, but she did call me up today to say "It appears your blog has returned to its old standards."  I suppose that could be a backhanded compliment of sorts, damning with faint praise (standards?), but being the momma's boy that I am, I will take that as a compliment from someone ill-disposed to empty praise and flattery ...

"IRONY TAKES NOTHING AWAY FROM PATHOS"

Ruth Franklin rescues Emma Bovary from Kathryn Harrison's shallow appraisal:

In a letter to Louise Colet, his lover and confidante, Flaubert did indeed write that his goal was to "write a novel about shallow, unsympathetic people in a dreary setting, some of whom make bad choices and come to a horrific end." And yet, despite his frustration with Emma and her decisions, despite his pitiless portrayal of her limited conversation and imagination, he is hardly unsympathetic to her. As he also wrote to Colet, "Irony takes nothing away from pathos." If Emma Bovary were truly just a shallow woman who comes to a bad end, she could never have become the subject of what is arguably the greatest French novel of the nineteenth century, the novel that set the course for realism forever after.

FROM THE SAUL BELLOW LETTERS

(Back from a brief trip east and posting again ...)

To Philip Roth:

January 7, 1984
Chicago

Dear Philip:

I thought to do something good by giving an interview to People, which was exceedingly foolish of me.  I asked Aaron [Asher] to tell you that the Good Intentions Paving Company had fucked up again.  The young interviewer turned my opinions inside out, cut out the praises and made it all sound like disavowal, denunciation and excommunication.  Well, we're both used to this kind of thing, and beyond shock.  In agreeing to take the call, and make a statement I was simply muddle-headed.  But if I had been interviewed by an angel for the Seraphim and Cherubim Weekly I'd have said, as I actually did say to the crooked little slut, that you were one of our very best and most interesting writers.  I would have added that I was greatly stimulated and entertained by your last novel, and that of course after three decades I understood perfectly well what you were saying about the writer's trade - how could I not understand, or miss suffering the same pains.  Still our diagrams are different, and the briefest description of the differences would be that you seem to have accepted the Freudian explanation: A writer is motivated by his desire for fame, money and sexual opportunities.  Whereas I have never taken this trinity of motives seriously.  But this is an explanatory note and I don't intend to make a rabbinic occasion of it.  Please accept my regrets and apologies, also my best wishes.  I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.

- Saul Bellow, Letters

WALKER PERCY AT NOTRE DAME

I'm teaching The Moviegoer to my UCLA students this semester, so I've been steeping myself in everything to do with Walker Percy.  I just stumbled on this clip of his 1989 commencement speech at Notre Dame.

I will be quiet here for a few days, but have not relapsed.  Updates will resume mid-week.

MAZEL TOV

Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question, has won the Man Booker Prize.  Apparently, it's the first "unabashedly comic novel" to win the coveted prize.

There will be cries of "about time too" for a funny and warm writer, now 68, who has long been highly regarded but unrewarded when it comes to major literary prizes.

Kalooki Nights has been sitting around here unread since it showed up eons ago.  Guess it's time.