Don't just see the movie, read the book. It has writing like this:
"You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else."
The usual end of year round up will dominate most of the posts for the next few days. When it came to deciding the best novel of 2008 there was really no question in my mind. It had to be Aleksander Hemon's fantastic and devastating third novel The Lazarus Project. The novel intertwines two stories, one being the true life murder of Lazarus Averbuch, an Eastern European Jew, who was shot to death in 1908 by the Chicago chief of police while trying to deliver a letter. His death sparked widespread paranoia about anarchy and dissent while only perpetuating unrest in the city's immigrant ghettos. The second story arc follows a Bosnian immigrant writer who becomes obsessed with the case and sets off to Europe with a photographer to try to understand Lazarus and his horrible fate. Hemon does a brilliant job balancing both narratives: one factual (kinda), one fictional. The novel is also interspersed with beautiful photographs, either from the Chicago Historical Society or by Velibor Bozovic. The photos enrich Hemon's hugely entertaining chronicle of loss, identity, and place. There is also an underlying comment on today's War on Terror. The Lazarus Project is one of those BIG IMPORTANT BOOKS we'll be talking about for years to come.
I recently finished an excellent novel by the Irish novelist John Banville called The Book of Evidence. This novel was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1989. Banville eventually took the Booker for his eighteenth novel The Sea, published in 2005. Banville's style is cold and calculating and he has been called "one of the great stylists writing in English today." Don DeLillo calls his work "dangerous and clear-running prose." All of this true but Banville is also one of the sharpest and darkest wits in fiction today. Despite his cold-Nabokovian style, Banville is able to craft a very compelling and charismatic protagonist in The Book of Evidence. This is especially impressive because the first person narrator of the novel is a despicable human being. A cultured but self-absorbed scientist, Freddie Montgomery, murders a servant girl while attempting to steal a painting to pay off a debt he didn't need in the first place. The majority of the novel is Montgomery's testimony to the court, giving his reasons and justifications for the murder. However, Montgomery knows already that he did it because he could, "I killed her because I could kill her, and I could kill her because for me she was not alive." The true theme that Banville explores is the great myth that high culture makes people more moral. Montgomery's detached cynicism and amorality makes Banville's stance on the issue clear. Anyway, I think The Book of Evidenceis a must read.
Earlier this year, in a class on Victorian poetry, the professor played a couple of wax cylinder recordings of Alfred Tennyson reading some of his most famous poems like "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The recordings were taken by Thomas Edison. I always find it hard to fathom whenever I read of two geniuses like Edison and Tennyson getting together. What do they talk about? It's rather like the comic book crossovers they would have when I was a kid where Batman and Superman would team up to fight crime.
In the New Yorker, Jonathan Rosen discusses the enduring relevance of John Milton and Paradise Lost. Most interestingly, he discusses a 1638 meeting between Milton and the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. The meeting clearly had an impact on Milton since, in Paradise Lost, Satan’s shield looks like the moon seen through Galileo’s telescope. Pretty cool... almost as cool as Batman and Superman teaming up...
Celebrated British novelist Sir Kingsley Amis, who passed away in 1995, has posthumously released a cheeky new book, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis. In addition to sound drinking advice like "Up to a point... go for quantity rather than quality," Amis was somehow able to distill all my thoughts on social drinking in one short and succinct paragraph:
"The human race has not devised any way of dissolving barriers... that is one tenth as handy and efficient as letting you and the other chap, or chaps, cease to be totally sober at about the same rate in agreeable surroundings"
Well put Sir Kingsley, it does not get any more complicated than that.
As an enormous James Bond fan, I'm more than a little excited about the release of an all new Bond novel. Devil May Care was released last week in true Bond fashion with a military escort down the Thames accompanied by a leggy blonde, of course. The novel's release coinicides with what would have been original author Ian Fleming's 100th birthday. What particularly piques my interest is that the Fleming family commissioned a surprisingly literary scribe to update the gentlemen spy for a new age. Sebastian Faulks is best known for sprawling psychological novels like Charlotte Gray and Birdsong. Faulks, who considers himself a keen literary mimic, tried to write in the style of Ian Fleming, a roguish spy in his own right. The story takes place in Cold War stricken 1967 and is played out across two continents. I should pick up the book this week so I'll post a more detailed review once I finish reading it. Between last year's excellent "Casino Royale" and what looks like a promising new novel, a Bond renaissance could be upon us.
Miss Cellania has a good collection of James Bond lists and trivia.
For good measure, a classic Bond scene for "Goldfinger":
Pistol Pete Maravich is generally believed to be the best college basketball player ever. While at Lousiana State University, Maravich averaged an amazing 44.2 points per game under the tutelage of his father Press Maravich who trained him in ball handling and shooting from a very young age sometimes making him dribble two balls outside of a moving car. It is difficult to fathom the artistry and grace with which he played the game. Pete went on to have a very successful career in the NBA playing with the Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans/Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics. A leg injury forced him retire in 1980, at which point he became a recluse for two year practicing Yoga, studying Hinduism and UFOs.
In 1988, while warming up to play a pickup basketball game, the Pistol collapsed and died of a heart attack due to a congenital heart defect fulfilling a prophecy he had as a young man. At age 23 Pete said, "I don't want to play 10 years [in the NBA] and then die of a heart attack when I'm 40."
A fascinated new biography about Maravich was published recently by Mark Kreigel. If you're a basketball fan, pick up this excellent look into a very interesting character.
Here's a great highlight mix so you can get an idea of what I mean:
The A.V. Club recently did a really cool interview with one of my favourite authors, Macarthur Genius Grant recipient Jonathan Lethem. He's written what I consider to be two truly astounding novels that should be required reading for anyone trying live in the twenty-first century, Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude. My favourite novel of his so far is The Fortress of Solitude which came out in 2003. It tells the story of Dylan Ebdus growing up in 1970's Brooklyn and follows him as well as his black best friend, Mingus Rude, through the 80's and 90's. His newest novel, You Don't Love Me Yet, is also very enjoyable but far less ambitious. One could hardly blame Lethem for writing a stopover EP after an epic double album like The Fortress of Solitude. You can read the interview here:
This bachelor is a paradox. He is equal parts Dandy and Hobo, gliding through life with little resistance and significant aplomb. No easy feat in Canada. This blog helps him to fulfill his life long ambition of forcing his taste on others and telling people what to do. The time for gentlemen is upon us.
Earlier this year, in a class on Victorian poetry, the professor played a couple of wax cylinder recordings of Alfred Tennyson reading some of his most famous poems like "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The recordings were taken by Thomas Edison. I always find it hard to fathom whenever I read of two geniuses like Edison and Tennyson getting together. What do they talk about? It's rather like the comic book crossovers they would have when I was a kid where Batman and Superman would team up to fight crime.
