The evolutionary beginnings of art. Or, in a world predicated upon survival of the fittest, why do we pay attention to aesthetics?
NYRB reviews Katha Pollitt’s latest collection of essays, “In-Between Woman.”
You’ve heard all the buzz about the Bad Sex in Fiction award, now read the shortlist. C’mon, you know you want to. And these excerpts really are scarily bad.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an insightful essay analyzing the movie Grendel against the book Grendel, and ends up classifying them into the Tolkien Beowulf and the Nietzschean Beowulf.
The NYT best books of 2007 list. Not any surprises here.
Virginia Quarterly Review has the most beautiful Google map on their website: a map of South America highlighting the origin of all of their writers (it’s an all-SA issue). Of special note are new fiction selections from Daniel Alarcon (I just finished “War by Candlelight” – what a haunting short story writer) and also an excerpt of Roberto Bolano from “Nazi Literature in the Americas.” The physical book also has a wonderful comic (graphic short story?) by the Argentinean artist Liniers.
And speaking of literary journals, I just got around to reading my Summer 2007 issue of The Paris Review, and loved the longish short story by André Aciman. Characters from Tunisia and Egypt, guiltiness over feeling fake at Harvard, class embarrassment. A wonderful read, and Aciman’s novel “Call Me By Your Name” was named one of the top books of the year.
