Office Parties

       Everyone in the room was frolicking in love, splashing each other with love, falling about in it, drinking it, pretending to drown in love. Jake and a tall, spectacled American were wreathed together like schoolgirls. Beth Conway was being hugged by Hurst, in spite of her breath, The cameraman was curled up on the continuity girl’s lap, nuzzling into her mohair breast. I drank a glassful of champagne that someone had left by the bookcase. It was immediately filled again by Conway who said, ‘I’m hanging on to this bottle, it’s the easiest way.’
       ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Good.’ Jake was mobile at parties, relentlessly leaving people in the middle of a sentence, always planning his next move. I seemed to go from trap to trap. I finished the champagne, hoping it would quell a rising despair.

—’Tis the season for holiday parties (ours is tonight), and we thought we’d share a party scene from Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater. The “I” is the protagnoist, Mrs. Armitage (we never learn her first name); Jake is her successful screenwriting and philandering husband; Conway is a family friend; and his wife Beth works with Jake, with whom, we will unsurprisingly discover, she has been having an affair. Read Daphne Merkin’s introduction here and enjoy your office parties!

“Featureless days”

It took me years and several viewings before I finally started to love the films of Yasujiro Ozu, one of the greatest directors ever. Coming from the perspective of someone raised on fast-paced action sequences, these films seemed unbearably slow. Nothing happened; indeed, the characters were actively avoiding activity. It seemed Ozu simply put the camera on a tripod and left while his actors had tea. Of course, there was something there, because I kept trying, and not just because people kept saying that Ozu was the master. Little by little, truly over years, I began to see the silent agony in these films, the kind of ever-present weight we labor under in real life as we go about our business, trying not to dwell on it. I knew nothing about Natsume Sōseki or The Gate (Mon, 1910; tr. from the Japanese by William F. Sibley, 2012) when I began it, but within just a few pages I recognized and warmed up to the style as a man relaxes on the veranda and says to his wife, ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it.’

—from The Mookse and the Gripes review of Natsume Sōseki’s The Gate, and they’re not the only ones making the connection between Sōseki and Ozu. If you’re looking for a starting point into Japanese modern literature, look no farther. Donald Keene called Sōseki “the most esteemed novelist of the twentieth century”, and his Wikipedia entry says (citations needed of course) “In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.” He was also on the 1,000 Yen note until 2004, and if you get the approval of the central bank, you must be doing something right.

Kids’ Gift Guide from NYRB

‘Tis the season for holiday gift guides, and we’ll give you one free of charge. We have decided to stick to kids’ books, since, who else really deserves presents?

Here are our favorite kids’ books of the year, and good gifts for the children in your life:

Wolf Story by William McCleery: McCleery’s son Michael, who was the basis for the child in this book, said recently on an interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition: “It really said, in a way that children could understand, the things that adults want to say to their kids, but so often cannot for whatever reason. Certainly the emotional side is easier. It’s easier to talk to a 5-year-old when you’re writing [your] words down than if you have to actually do it with him.”

The Box of Delights by John Masefield: If you like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, but with perhaps a bit more holiday cheer, check this one out. Also, for any of those children who dig classic English YA books.

Cheerful by Palmer Brown: We could have recommended Brown’s Something for Christmas, but it seemed too easy. This book is adorable, and it’s about a mouse who grows up in a church and enjoys sitting in the light from a stained-glass window, which is wonderfully illustrated by the author.

He Was There From the Day We Moved In by Rhoda Levine: It’s about dogs that don’t talk back. And how to name strange dogs that inhabit your yard. And it’s illustrated by Edward Gorey. Enough said.

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi: A newly translated classic with warm illustrations by Fulvio Testa. This book will last a long time in a child’s memory.

The film trailer for The Desert of the Tartars, unfortunately not very good quality and not in English. The film was based on Dino Buzzati’s novel, usually translated as The Tartar Steppe (no issue in Italian: Il deserto dei Tartari), and is playing this evening at BAMcinématek as part of their Max von Sydow retrospective. We haven’t published this novel, but have reissued Buzzati’s children’s book The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily and the graphic novel Poem Strip.

There is no fearing dreams when they produce work. It is when they feed upon themselves that one becomes uncertain of reality, unable to distinguish between the present in one’s mind and the present as it appears to the outer world.

—from Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male. The final book in the WORD Bookstore Classics Book Group for 2012, attended “by types who aren’t rattled by a little obscurity,” according to Time Out New York.

“You’ll grow up to be a real jackass”

Pinocchio was initially serialized and, once upon a time, concluded with Pinocchio’s violent death before Collodi, at the request of his publisher, then extended the story and had the Beautiful Girl with the Sky-Blue Hair (whom Disney made the ‘Blue Fairy’) save him. If you have never read his tale and are expecting Disney’s version, you’ll be in for a shock. Instead, you can expect—as but one example of its bloodshed—cricketcide: When Pinocchio meets the Talking Cricket in chapter four and tells him he doesn’t want to study in school, the cricket tells him he’ll ‘grow up to be a real jackass’ and the source of everyone’s derision, later calling him a ‘blockhead.’ Then, Pinocchio jumps up in a rage and smashes the Talking Cricket with a wooden mallet. ‘With his last breath the poor Cricket cried cree-cree-cree and then died on the spot, stuck to the wall.’

Jiminy who?

—Fulvio Testa’s illustrated version of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, recommended in Kirkus Reviews by Julie Danielson as a “Gift for the Fairy Tale Lover in Your Life.”

“PLEASE SELL 10,000 WORTH OF STOCK. WE HAVE DECIDED TO LEAD A MAD AND EXTRAVAGANT LIFE.”

      On this day in 1929, Hart Crane hosted a party for Harry and Caresse Crosby, attended by E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Malcolm Cowley, Walker Evans, and a crowd of Crane’s sailor friends. Held at Crane’s apartment in full view of the Brooklyn Bridge, the party was to celebrate Crane’s completion of his seven-year poem, The Bridge, and its imminent publication by the Crosbys’ Black Sun Press. It was also a bon voyage to the Crosbys, who were scheduled to sail for Europe within the week, returning to the wild and wealthy expatriate pursuits they had declared their mission — in telegrams home, for example: PLEASE SELL 10,000 WORTH OF STOCK. WE HAVE DECIDED TO LEAD A MAD AND EXTRAVAGANT LIFE.
      Crane had written parts of The Bridge at the Crosbys’ retreat outside Paris. This was a place of champagne, polo played on donkeys, and literary projects, all of it inspired or just funded by the Crosbys—both were high society Boston, and Harry’s uncle was J. P. Morgan. The Black Sun Press had evolved from being a vehicle for the Crosbys’ own bad poetry to being an important outlet for many famous modernists, among them James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Archibald MacLeish. Whatever else was said about their money, self-indulgence, and Jazz Age pranks, the Crosbys were known to be serious about full living and good books.
       But if Harry Crosby was among the richest of the Lost Generation, he was also among its most lost. Behind Crosby’s “black sun” logo was a cryptic personal mythology based on darkness and light, and a commitment to living hard and dying young. One plan was to blaze out by airplane, another was to jump—on the morning of his death Harry asked Caresse to jump from their hotel room. Josephine Bigelow, Crosby’s mistress, was his ‘Sun Princess,’ and one of the few who took it all seriously: two and a half days after Crane’s party, Crosby and Bigelow committed double suicide, using Harry’s revolver, engraved with a sun.

—The December 7th “Daybook” entry, a blog on the B&N Review written by Steve King. If this story interests you check out Geoffrey Wolff’s Black Sun, which also includes b’n’w photographs of mad Harry and his crew.

The NYRB Holiday Sale: Save up to 40% — Last Days For Standard Shipping Rates

The NYRB Holiday Sale Discounts up to 40% off The NYRB Holiday Sale includes books for readers of all ages.   Collections are 40% off and individual books are 25% off. Shop now December 7 is the last day to place your order if you want to pay regular shipping (continental US addresses only) and have your books delivered by December 24.   Free NYRB Classics Tote Bag If your Holiday Sale order is $75 or more, we’ll include our NYRB Classics tote bag ($8.95 value) for free.

Literary Kids Book Reviews: Interview with Fulvio Testa  →

literarykids:

Interview on November 11 2012 at the Waldorf Astoria NYC

Introduction to Pinocchio by Umberto Eco, “…it’s not even a fairy tale, since it lacks the fairy tale’s indifference to everyday reality and doesn’t limit itself to one simple basic moral, but rather deals with many.”

On Veteran’s Day a couple weeks ago, the internationally acclaimed children’s book illustrator Fulvio Testa sat down with me over tea in the Peacock Bar at the Waldorf Astoria to talk about his ground-breaking work for Geoffrey Bock’s new translation of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio.  The wide-ranging conversation inevitably led to a discussion of his artistic philosophy regarding children’s book illustration in general, and how he can’t get New York out of his mind.  

Focus and Rhythm

         For this project, Testa told me how he created a special storyboard that allowed him to keep constant track of the visual and literary levels he was trying to maintain. During the process, he constantly asked himself, “How can I get readers to understand the story simply by creating an image? There are two ways that I might create an image, either one image with two stories, or one large edited image.” To choose the right scenes for Pinocchio, Testa outlined places where he felt the images would best compliment the text, and read the book repeatedly in order to completely grasp the flow of action.  Perhaps equally important to the actual artwork itself, he added, is the pacing and the precise location of where an image is placed in a printed book. “There are fifty-two images in this book, and they are relatively close together. I try to create a rhythm to the illustrations,” meaning that each picture represents a pivotal moment in the story, and in Pinocchio most chapters either end or begin with an illustration. The flowing imagery allows the reader to maintain a steady pace, while creating pauses in the storyline and breaking the text into manageable parts. 

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“Judge me for my own merits”

Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that great scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do. It may be that there are metaphysicians and philosophers whose learning is greater than mine, although I have not met them. Yet, they are but frail humans, too, and have their faults; so, when I add the sum total of my graces, I confess I am inferior to no one.

—The French Englightenment scientist Emilié du Châtelet writing to Frederick the Great, quoted in Jenny McPhee’s review in Bookslut of Nancy Mitford’s Voltaire in Love, a book about the productive and scandalous relationship between Châtelet and Voltaire.

Off On a Tangent: Favorite Books Published Earlier Than 2012 →

offonatangent:

I’m a little alarmed that I’ve signed up for at least three different “Best of” Lists for various places that pay me. They’ll be fun to compile but I admit this list, of books I adored that were published in years past (recent or not-so-recent) will be my sentimental favorite of the bunch.

- The entire backlist of Dorothy B. Hughes, but in particular, THE EXPENDABLE MAN (1963), reissued by NYRB Classics this summer; RIDE THE PINK HORSE (1946); and DREAD JOURNEY (1945), ostensibly about a cross-country train trip where someone will die before the last stop but really a lacerating examination of Hollywood mores of the time. Way more on Hughes in the essay I wrote for the LA Review of Books in August.

- Thomas Tryon, THE OTHER (1970). Before he turned to novels, Tryon was a promising actor whose career was essentially derailed by noted asshole Otto Preminger’s relentless abuse on set. Tryon quit Hollywood and found his real voice with this, his first novel, about 13-year-old twin boys who are polar opposites: Niles the eager-to-please one, Holland the simmering, surly one. The great thing about THE OTHER is that you’re free to interpret events any way you like, and it’s totally okay. Tryon leaves things that open.

— Raymond Kennedy, RIDE A COCKHORSE (1991) — Another NYRB Classics reissue. My god, what a monster Frankie is! Her transformation sudden, unexplained, but then she takes what she wants (like the high school bandmember in the opening chapter, then leadership of the bank where before she was a mere mousy teller) and it seems great until it isn’t. But what a ride. Shocked glee is the best way to describe reading this book.

— Elizabeth Taylor, ANGEL and A GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK — based on these two books, the first about a young woman determined to be a successful writer (and though she achieves this, it’s also her undoing), the other about the way a brief, aborted love affair hangs over lives for decades afterwards, I clearly need to read more of her books.

Okay, so we modify the post a bit. But out of the ten “Favorite Book Published Earlier Than 2012” chosen by Sarah Weinman on her blog Off On a Tangent, four of them were our titles. And that’s as it should be.

Getting Gallant

I laughed, but I was the only one to do so. No one else seemed to know that this was a bit of Canadian gallows humor.

Over at Hazlitt, Michelle Dean goes to a tribute to (the still living) Mavis Gallant at KGB bar, helpfully explicating some references in Gallant’s stories that may be obscure to Americans and correcting Wallace Shawn’s pronunciation of “Raymond.”

“The Art of Nothing Happening”

Sōsuke had been relaxing for some time on the veranda, legs comfortably crossed on a cushion he had set down in a warm, sunny spot. After a while, however, he let drop the magazine he had been holding and lay down on his side. It was a truly fine autumn day, the sun bright, the air crisp, and the clatter of wooden clogs passing through the quiet neighborhood echoed in his ears with a heightened clarity. Tucking one arm under his head, he cast his gaze past the eaves at the expanse of clear blue sky above. Compared to the tiny space he occupied here on the veranda, this patch of sky appeared extremely vast. Thinking what a difference it made, simply to take in the sky in the rare, leisurely fashion afforded by a Sunday, he squinted directly at the blazing sun for a few moments, then, averting his eyes, rolled over to his other side and faced the shoji. Beyond its panels his wife was seated, busy with her needlework.

—the first paragraph of Nasume Sōseki’s The Gate, translated by William F. Sibley and on sale today. The Gate is a classic of the Japanese Meiji era, and it was Sōskei’s favorite of his own novels. Pico Iyer, in the introduction to this edition, writes that, “in Sōseki’s world doing nothing should never be mistaken for feeling too little or lacking a vision or doctrine.” Sam Sacks, reviewing the book in the Wall Street Journal, notes something else: “Sōseki had a genius for sensitively depicting souls in torment.”

The covers for the upcoming Renata Adler books, Speedboat and Pitch Dark, are done. Cover art by Helen Frankenthaler.

slaughterhouse90210:

BOOKS I LOVED IN 2012

I hate ranking the things I love. So this year, I decided to go high school yearbook-style and give all of my 2012 book crushes some fancy superlatives.  All have provided great source material, and all are highly recommended.

BEST VINTAGE READ THAT STILL FEELS VITAL: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes

Originally published in 1963, with a sparkly new edition released in 2012, Hughes’s crime fiction masterpiece screwed with all of my preconceptions of what noir could be. Even as The Expendable Man details the plight of a protagonist with spectacularly bad wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time luck, it manipulates our expectations and reveals our prejudices. Knife-cuttable tension abounds.