InDefinition - 48

lessthetic, adj. of one who can't tell his art from his elbow

Chinaman UPDATE

It is with no great pleasure that I report that the American edition of Shehan Karunatilaka's multi-award-winning Chinaman: the legend of Pradeep Mathew is to be sold in America under just its subtitle.

Was this, I asked, a weary recognition of the lowlier status of cricket in the States, and/or a late-on realisation that, without very obvious sporting apparatus on the cover, the original title might have side-stepped even quite avid cricket fans?

No, Shehan replies. It's because in America 'the C-word' is deemed 'a racial slur'.

OMFG

At a reading in the Ideas [?!!!!] section of New York's McNally Jackson bookstore last year, Geoff Dyer

was introduced by the novelist Sam Lipsyte, who described Mr. Dyer’s work as “gender-bending.” He meant genre. Their respective statures recalled Laurel and Hardy.

(From this otherwise very enjoyable piece by Emily Witt, in the New York Observer.*)


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* Even if she does misspell 'Bernhard'.

When I want an automated book-dealer to do my thinking for me...

Tipped off by an interesting reference [in Zona] to David Markson's This Is Not a Novel, I went to Amazon and typed in 'Markson not a novel'.

Directing me, admittedly, straight away to the desired product, the Amazon sales-gnome rather grudgingly added:

Did you mean: maroon not a novel*

Try it. Just see what bloody happens.
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* no question mark, either, you notice. Patronising spacktards.

Hmmm...

... having used that expression poet of the cinema, I realise that poets are the only people I want to be poets, that I want poets to be poets only of poetry.

- Geoff Dyer, Zona

Pascoe's my MIDDLE name, baby

4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful historical musical gem, 30 April 2009

By 

Richard Pascoe "Fruitbat" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Ralph Fiennes dissects the meaning of drama

I feel [Coriolanus] is like some magnificent beast or animal; like a horse that has always been trained to be this pure thing. Then suddenly the trainer — his mother — turns around and says, “Can you actually be this entirely other thing?” So he tries but then suddenly it all fucks up and goes crazy.

- Ralph Fiennes, interviewed in The Spectator

A big BOOMSHAKALAKA!!

to Chinaman author Shehan Karunatilaka, for adding the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature to his Gratiaen gong.

Nice one, hairy man.

InDefinition - 47

touché, n. grope (Fr.)

So this is why we pay Erica Wagner...

Poetry isn't found only between the covers of books, however wonderful those books may be. The poets make it from the stuff they find all around them - cups of coffee included.

- Erica Wagner, The Times

Duh.

Glad tidings from Nicholas Clee at The Times

1) In the 'Waterstones [sic.] 11 [sic.]' class of 2012, 'only two of the authors' biographies mention creative writing courses.'*

2) and last year 'sales of celebrity memoirs declined 50 per cent.'

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* I suppose the key word is 'mention'.

One for the writers

GODDAMN!

'Exceptional' life of Max Sebold

It is just over a decade since the author WG Sebald, or Max Sebald as he was known to friends, was killed in a car crash at the age of 57.

- BBC Today programme

... and apparently that's too long to remember how to spell his goddamn name.

Totally retarded comment by Henry Mancini

Bookwise, I favor biographies of musicians and composers from Bach to the present.

- Henry Mancini, Did They Mention the Music?

The things she carries

I am proud to report that my postlady announced the other day that were it not for my 'little problem' concerning the acquisition of books she would most probably be out of a job.

One does what one can.

That's showbiz!!!

Insofar as generic judgments are possible, the ghosted autobiography of a show business celebrity is the lowest form of literary life.

- Geoff Dyer, New York Times Book Review

[To wit...]

Books of remembrance (tossed out with all the other junk)

This week the charity shop window reveals that someone with an interest in Nixon has died.

Last week it was natural selection.

InDefinition - 46

disproportion, n. silly amount. 'I spend a disproportion of my time tweezing my nose hairs', e.g.

The brief history of publishing

quixotic — a word derived from one of the first novels licensed to a publisher.

- Joshua Cohen, New York Times Book Review

'Conkers'

A word that should be Dutch. But isn't.

Bugger£&*%(&(£"! UPDATE

And so that we're clear, this oddity is not a result of my choice choice of vocab, nor the use of non-standard lexicon, more broadly. When attempting 'stationery' this afternoon, I was indeed offered the word I was looking for, but the options scroll also included 'stationerw', 'stationerx', 'stationerz' and 'stationer9'.

This last, presumably, is a forthcoming snooze-fest by David Mitchell, set in space/old-town Kyoto.

Classic headline

Despite Long Slide by Kodak, Company Town Avoids Decay

(In an article on the company's digital-age 'development' problems, no less.) 

BBCliché

I find myself increasingly irritated by the BBC newscasters' nanny-culture warning:

This report may contain distressing images.

When it comes to international affairs, the day the news does not involve distressing images should be the day we all stop paying our licence fees.

Bugger£&*%(&(£"!

It is a particularly charmless quirk of my new Sony Ericsson Experia Ray that when I type the word 'bugger' (a word I surely had to teach it in the first place) I am first offered 'buggep', then 'buggeq', and only then the traditional spelling.

And don't even get me started on the plurals.

Non-fiction (cf. 'truth')

The supreme test of nonfiction is that it be interesting irrespective of the reader’s indifference to the subject under discussion.

- Geoff Dyer, New York Times Book Review

On the howsos and wheretofores of trees

Latest, from the lovely people at Five Dials.

Italics

I don't know about you, but I find it deeply inconvenient that one cannot easily emphasise the first person singular. (If you write it between asterisks, it makes you look like a dick.)

InDefinition - 45 / Only in English - 11

millenarian, n. one who spells millennium [sic.] with only one N.

Why hyphens are important

A still [shot], it seemed, was not still at all, more like the aftermath of a more specific but still elusive tingle of déjà vu.

- Dyer, Zona

#GeoffDyer

Upon receipt of Geoff Dyer's latest*, Zona, I observe that on the back fly the publishers beseech us to 'Follow the conversation on Twitter #GeoffDyer'.

Not only is this a bit cheeky, since Geoff himself is not on Twitter, but adherents to Canongate's instructions will so far find themselves met with this:

 No Tweet results for #GeoffDyer.

Publicity clanggg!

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*GET IN!

Challenge

I had never heard anyone say my thoughts out, word for word, including the punctuation.

- AL Kennedy, 'Christine', Now that you're back

InDefinition - 44

mumpteen, adj. precise number of times your mother has seen a given film (Crimson Tide, e.g.) the basic plot of which she still cannot remember

Why politicians have speech-writers

Exhibit A: Clint Webb.

So close!

candid

candied

Something Amis

Is the opening paragraph of The Information the worst thing I've ever read, or what?

Honouring Roald Dahl

Is it just me, or do these stamps in fact honour Quentin Blake?

Dust-jacket thou art

‎In Alfred Andersch, German literature has discovered one of its soundest and most individual talents.

- Alfred Andersch, dust-jacket copy (own)

A man can dream

To be a poet is not my ambition, it's simply my way of being alone.

- Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa), 'The Keeper of Herds'

Only in English - GUEST ENTRY

Solid effort at highlighting the madness of the English language (not to mention the trickiness of scansion).

Also, check out the vox twat comments below.

Please do not take this comment out of context

In which Diane Abbott MP uses the world's most contextless mode of communication to slate whitey before realising the trouble she was in [actually, I think her boss 'realised' it for her], claiming

Tweet taken out of context. Refers to nature of 19th century European colonialism.

and then complaining that the subject matter (and, apparently, irony) was a bit much to cram into 140 characters.

Also, she's missed out a hyphen.

Twitturgh

LondonReview London Review (LRB) 

'Writer. Book lover. Opera lover. Nature lover. Lover': Jeanette Winterson's self-description @Wintersonworld

UPDATE

My semi-smart Sony Ericsson now recognises 'Kleenices' - as a word, if not necessarily the plural of Kleenex. It's official!

Found in books - 3

In a discarded library copy [for shame!] of WG Sebald's On The Natural History of Destruction:

1) A stamp reading

LANGUAGES, LIT/FICTION DIVISION
HAMILTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
55 YORK BLVD.
HAMILTON, ONTARIO
L8R 3KI

which I think says everything you need to know about Sebald's writing; the confusions book-folks get themselves into by trying to classify things (too cleverly or too simply: what is translated work doing under 'LANGUAGES'?); and the unanswerable but nonetheless interesting question of where exactly the line falls between literature and (all other) fiction, and/or whether it falls there at all.

2) A yellow slip bearing an invitation from BetterWorldBooks to 'help improve delivery times'. With which I would have no problem (in principle, you understand: I still wouldn't actually fill it in), were it not signed off

My friends look forward to hearing from you

- Sincerely, Your Book

Gah!

One Kleenex

... two Kleenices?