Three unrelated tidbits
Got this neat little Julius Caesar thing going after my haircut this afternoon.
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Lots of talk about the Best / Most Influential Books of the Past 25 Years. The New York Times as usual seeks to and does locate itself at the center of an invented yet important discussion. Beloved by Toni Morrison wins. Opinions? For my part, I have no qualms with Beloved's victory. I'd have loved it, but been surprised, if Don DeLillo had won out. He's one of my boys, no question, one of our very best, but I think he'd be more liable to win on this site than in any Times survey. The list of judges is long and distinguished, and that more than anything else means that I can't take any issue over the result. But while I have no qualms with the survey itself, I think that there's a great deal more to say which books were chosen and why, and what books were omitted and why, and what that means about the art. I wouldn't consider anything that received a vote to be very cutting-edge or experimental. There's a conservative bent to any discussion in which your task is to ID the "best" of something, maybe. I dunno: I guess I'm more prone to digging on that work which risks. I'm not hating on Beloved or any of the books on this list. But I miss me some Corrections with its incredible scene of talking poo; I miss me some Mark Z. Danielewski circa House of Leaves; I miss me some inestimable IJ. Even Nicholson Baker's stuff (The Mezzanine, say, and know that I'm excluding Vox entirely) would rate a mention in my list.
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There's a thrift shop in the basement of this church in Skaneateles; it contains the most ornate, lovely old cash register you have ever seen. When I paid for my porcelain cup and three CD's ($3.25 plus NYS tax), the woman helping me said "Don't leave: I have to give you your 2 cents. I am so going to give you your 2 cents!" She did. She's wins today's Best Person Ever award.
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Lots of talk about the Best / Most Influential Books of the Past 25 Years. The New York Times as usual seeks to and does locate itself at the center of an invented yet important discussion. Beloved by Toni Morrison wins. Opinions? For my part, I have no qualms with Beloved's victory. I'd have loved it, but been surprised, if Don DeLillo had won out. He's one of my boys, no question, one of our very best, but I think he'd be more liable to win on this site than in any Times survey. The list of judges is long and distinguished, and that more than anything else means that I can't take any issue over the result. But while I have no qualms with the survey itself, I think that there's a great deal more to say which books were chosen and why, and what books were omitted and why, and what that means about the art. I wouldn't consider anything that received a vote to be very cutting-edge or experimental. There's a conservative bent to any discussion in which your task is to ID the "best" of something, maybe. I dunno: I guess I'm more prone to digging on that work which risks. I'm not hating on Beloved or any of the books on this list. But I miss me some Corrections with its incredible scene of talking poo; I miss me some Mark Z. Danielewski circa House of Leaves; I miss me some inestimable IJ. Even Nicholson Baker's stuff (The Mezzanine, say, and know that I'm excluding Vox entirely) would rate a mention in my list.
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There's a thrift shop in the basement of this church in Skaneateles; it contains the most ornate, lovely old cash register you have ever seen. When I paid for my porcelain cup and three CD's ($3.25 plus NYS tax), the woman helping me said "Don't leave: I have to give you your 2 cents. I am so going to give you your 2 cents!" She did. She's wins today's Best Person Ever award.
posted by Wil at
1:20 PM
3 Comments:
two things: one, picture of this haircut, sil vous plait. two, about this times list - if i read it correctly, though beloved won, not a single book written by a woman was one of the finalists or runners up or anything.
By
Jaime, at 2:10 PM
You're right. Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping" received "multiple votes" (unknown what that means). I think that this issue is partly what I was addressing when I started addressing this. There's a conservative bent to discussions of "the best" - why? Because there's some long-running ingrained "canon" in our blood? How can there even be a "best" w/o some reliance or leaning on some canonical notion of literary worth? I'm not trolling: I'm curious. Because otherwise there'll be a risk of complete subjectivity and zero consensus.
By
Wil, at 5:08 PM
Certain interested parties took note of my use of "my boy" in regard to Don DeLillo. Duly noted. I like to think that I was just being casual, and letting my enthusiasm show. Perhaps too much. And honestly: I don't want to uphold some entrenched paradigm. That said, these are the writers I know and get jazzed about. I could mention Kathy Acker, Nadine Gordimer, Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Bloom - they're all fine practioners. They just didn't spring to mind when I considered the issue at hand. Maybe that fact does confess something. What?
By
Wil, at 5:55 PM
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