Books I've actually finished lately: 49a

Salman Rushdie: As Saleem Sinai says, 'What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same'.
Francis Plug: Sure. But he also calls his penis a soo-soo. [Laughs.]

- Paul Ewen

'google', v. tr. UPDATE

A friend and colleague writes to suggest that: 'in Sense of an Ending' Julian Barnes 'is "doing" Ian McEwan, so then to me at least it feels more natural.'

She goes on to float the idea that JB's [entirely reasonable] sourness re. never having won the Booker might finally have driven him to consciously pastiche the double-winning McEwan by way of a fuck-you to the Man Booker prize committee. A grim theory, if correct - since they promptly handed him the prize.

[With thanks to AC]

Literary realities: 2

Why are American novelist-academics who write themselves into novels as American novelist-academics always from small New England humanities colleges? Why do they never say, 'I'm Professor of English Literature at Harvard, I've written 11 highly acclaimed novels, won the Booker, the James Tait Black and the Nobel, had a film made about me and am generally a big swinging dick, so the rest of you can all just fuck off.'?