“Violence was, indeed, all I knew of the Balkans: all I knew of the South Slavs.”—Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Anyone in the US with even a passing interest in contemporary fiction has by now heard the ovations given to Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife. The New Yorker introduced Obreht as . . .
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I’ve got no real beef with Ron Rosenbaum over at Slate. Sometimes he writes things that make me scratch my head (people shouldn’t read Joyce’s Ulysses? Really?), but generally he’s one among a number of smart folks who like books but aren’t academics or interested in how academics read and like to . . .
Read MoreI wasn’t in Sarajevo during the war; I also wasn’t here for its recent twentieth anniversary. A host of international journalists did return, and witnessed first-hand a very simple, devastating demonstration, staged by the theater director Haris Pasović, as testimony to the years of the Sarajevo siege. 11,541 empty red chairs, many . . .
Read MoreFrom MR 52.3/4: “Here is what the mind does”* when my laptop opens to a small red car, a tight street,the dust gray and yellow, the electric window half open,and five little lean-to cards, on each a number to denote where a spent round ended after traveling its distance with lead certitude, with molten . . .
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First, a friend posted on my wall a thumbnail of Edward Romanzo Elmer’s Mourning Picture. We have talked often about this painting, and about Adrienne Rich’s poem about it, but because I have not yet heard the news I’m not sure why Peter is reminding me of this. I’m about to reply with . . .
Read MoreToday a friend wrote to lament the passing of a lovely soul, the Italian novelist, activist, and translator Antonio Tabucchi. “I wish he had written more, had not had Berlusconi to counter, and had lived longer.” Amen. And yet some may remember Tabucchi today only for his novel of political awakening, Pereira Declares (or . . .
Read MoreDuring a brief exchange at the Mass Review table in Chicago, when asked what poetry I like, I offered a few names. My response was met with the usual “Ah, Language poetry is so dated and passé, and besides there’s no feeling in it and isn’t it so narrow” comment, to which there is . . .
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago, Adele won six Grammy awards. I haven’t ever paid much attention to the Grammys; the music I most like doesn’t really echo in that chamber of the culture. This news caught my attention, though, because it was yet another reminder of how much how many people really . . .
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“When you are in the last ditch, there is nothing left but to sing.” Thus Samuel Beckett, after a U.S. reporter asked why his small country had produced so many great writers. Beckett then developed the point by means of triangulation: “It’s the English Government and the Catholic Church – they have . . .
Read MoreDelivered at the January, 2012 residency of the Pacific University Brief-Residency MFA in Seaside, Oregon I hate starting my remarks this way because you’re going to think I’m an asshole. Or maybe that’s not the ideal way to phrase it. You probably already think I’m an asshole. Maybe I’m projecting . . .
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