Books

[vansmack]

That would be horrible. Someone else took her in my death pool.

At 88, she can't be worth that many points.

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

At 88, she can't be worth that many points.

You guys have a scoring system that rewards younger deaths? That's cool.

Ours is rotisserie draft style, and each celebrity can be selected up to 4 times. (First person to select them has them for 4 points, second person is only gets 3, third person gets 2...)

[K8teebug]

Don't believe the hype, the Miranda July novel is AWFUL.

[Space Freely]

Getting books from library book sales means reading books that may not exactly be current, but they still may be relevant and/or interesting.

I read this one recently:

The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn

by Diane Ravitch

The title is pretty self explanatory. This review sums it up nicely.


Diane Ravitch's The Language Police shines a light on a dark secret in k-12 education, namely the scandalous undermining of content standards in k-12 textbooks due to a collusion between textbook publishers and censors aimed at shielding children from anything that even remotely could be considered harmful or offensive to potential educational consumers. I had heard a few "Ripley's Believe It or Not" stories about this phenomenon -- for example, a university colleague of mine who had written a widely used high school civics text told me recently how he was asked by a California textbook review board to eliminate a diagram depicting the classic "layer cake" model of American federalism, lest it encourage kids to eat junk food -- but only after seeing Ravitch's book did I realize just how far this sort of lunacy had gone. The book meticulously documents its argument with an enormous amount of scholarly evidence, and equally meticulously tries to demonstrate that both liberals and conservatives are at fault for this problem. Ravitch has no ideological axe to grind here. She takes shots at both political correct feminists and others on the left as well as religious conservatives and others on the right, and anyone in-between who would deny our children a subtantively strong, academically sound education. It is a must-read for anyone concerned about the dumbing down of American education and the movement away from serious, free inquiry in our schools.

[Space Freely]

I'm currently reading:

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

by Anatoli Boukreev


which documents the tragic events on Mt Everest in May 1996. The same events were coverered in Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, which I've already read. It will be neat to go back in read that one again and compare the different writer/climber's versions.

[walk,on,by]

I am reading this, it is great, so go read it, right now

dan simmons  -  the terror and hyperion

about to start this, so go read, it too, right now

Vincent di paolo  -  my beloved friend, judas

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

Anyone getting Go Set A Watchman? I was really hyped for it when it was first announced but the ensuing details revealing it's basically a failed first-draft of what became Mockingbird (wherein Atticus is a racist) that is basically being released without Lee's permission -- and by some accounts knowledge at all -- has me rethinking it. Memories of my purchase of The Original of Laura are wafting back. . .

[walk,on,by]

im waiting for the band name of

racist atticus

or

atticus is a racist

[Relaxer]

I'll read it. Mockingbird is one of my all-time favorite books, so there's no way I can pass on this.

Similarly, when all the demos for Psychocandy hit the internet, I snatched them up and really enjoyed listening to them.

What's the difference?

[walk,on,by]

speaking of books, try reading this one . . . good lord, the words and ideas, are so, out there.

the power of now  -  Eckhart Tolle

[Relaxer]

Anyway, here's what I'm reading right now:

Home-Toilet Book



Home-Bedside Table Book



Downstairs Lounge Book

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

What's the difference?

Well, the demos for Psychocandy were, presumably, not marketed as a "new JAMC album." Passing off an early, complete-different, racist depiction of a character as a "sequel" changes the narrative of that character, whether intended or not. And also, right or wrong, the publishing of work against the writer's expressed wishes is viewed quite differently in the literary world as compared to musical demos leaking (which is probably an interesting TAN conversation), and there does seem to be serious misgivings about Lee's ability as an 89-year old blind and mostly deaf person in hospice/eldercare (whose longtime executor just passed away) to articulate her wishes in the matter.

That said, I'm not intending to tell people "YO. DON'T READ THIS BOOK, MILKSHITTER!" just attempting to have a discussion about the merits and ethics of this release. I think you definitely have the right idea going into reading it with the idea it's "bonus material" left on the cutting room floor.

[Relaxer]

The original version of "Shout at the Devil" was called "Shout with the Devil" and instead of beginning with "He's the wolf crying lonely in the night, he's the blood stain on the sta-a-a-age" it began with "I'm the wolf crying lonely in the night, I'm the blood stain on the sta-a-age."

The original version of "The Drugs Dont' Work" has the lyric "They just make you worse, but I, know I'll see your face again" though the original went "The drugs don't work, they just make me worse, but I, know I'll see your face again."

Works change and evolve. I can't speak to the fact that it was published over her wishes, but I think that's just people mythologizing Lee because she's still alive. If an unpublished Hemingway book surfaced, would we be having this discussion? I doubt it. Watchman is a piece of literary history and should be released.

Also, I haven't read very much about this apart from the Gawker-style headlines of "You'll Never Guess How Atticus Finch Became a Racist Because Oh My God!!!!!" but I'd like to think that in Mockingbird, Scout visualizes her father as a heroically honorable god among men in the same way children do with their parents, like my own for example. Later, as an adult however, she realizes the reality is that all men are flawed, especially her father who can now be seen as the racist he always was.

[Relaxer]

One final point: most people's impressions and knowledge of Mockingbird are based on the movie, not the book. Those who have really absorbed the book know that while the two are, of course, similar, there are marked differences in tone and perspective between them. The book does not deal or focus nearly as much on the trial as the movie does.

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

If an unpublished Hemingway book surfaced, would we be having this discussion? I doubt it.

This exact issue happened with Nabokov. And Kafka. And is currently occurring with Salinger. The posthumous release of unfinished works by authors -- and especially those who instructed their work to be destroyed/not published -- is literally a huge ethical debate in the literary world.

. . .but I'd like to think that in Mockingbird, Scout visualizes her father as a heroically honorable god among men in the same way children do with their parents, like my own for example. Later, as an adult however, she realizes the reality is that all men are flawed, especially her father who can now be seen as the racist he always was.

See, I would argue that's the exact opposite way one should view it. By most accounts, Lee sent Watchman in and was told in a letter from the publisher, "hey, that character doesn't work, make him better and tell us a story through young Scout's eyes." Thinking the character of Atticus was always supposed to get older and espouse racist views (and, if you follow the logic, wasn't really attempting to be an agent of change but was just a lawyer doing his duty) kind of changes what the Mockingbird was trying to say if you ACTUALLY view it as an intended sequel.