What makes a good writer? Is writing an expression of self, or, as TS Eliot argued, ‘an escape from personality’? Do novelists have a duty? Do readers? Why are there so few truly great novels?

From The Guardian:

I’ve often thought it would be fascinating to ask living writers: “Never mind critics, what do you yourself think is wrong with your writing? How did you dream of your book before it was created? What were your best hopes? How have you let yourself down?” A map of disappointments – that would be a revelation.

Map of disappointments – Nabokov would call that a good title for a bad novel. It strikes me as a suitable guide to the land where writers live, a country I imagine as mostly beach, with hopeful writers standing on the shoreline while their perfect novels pile up, over on the opposite coast, out of reach. Thrusting out of the shoreline are hundreds of piers, or “disappointed bridges”, as Joyce called them. Most writers, most of the time, get wet. Why they get wet is of little interest to critics or readers, who can only judge the soggy novel in front of them. But for the people who write novels, what it takes to walk the pier and get to the other side is, to say the least, a matter of some importance. To writers, writing well is not simply a matter of skill, but a question of character. What does it take, after all, to write well? What personal qualities does it require? What personal resources does a bad writer lack? In most areas of human endeavour we are not shy of making these connections between personality and capacity. Why do we never talk about these things when we talk about books?

More here.

Robert Pinsky reviews the new book by Barbara Ehrenreich, in the New York Times Book Review:

“Take me out with the crowd,” goes the old baseball song. “I love this crowd,” repeats the classic stand-up comic. Every lecturer knows: the larger the group, the more they become an event for themselves, heightening the attention, the laughs or the emotions. At our national political conventions, people wear silly hats and bob up and down to music so stupid it is a parody of music, in order to “demonstrate” a political feeling. Participating in a demonstrative crowd gives joy, as being a mere spectator cannot. Even in a culture where recorded performance has become central, people crave the live event, largely for that group joy.

Barbara Ehrenreich wants to affirm the value of ecstatic group celebration. She aligns it with the old precolonial, precapitalist, pre-Christian religions, and with Carnival. The dancing meant by her title has ancient roots; it precedes streets. It also goes beyond them in the modern stadium, where sports and music, watching and performing, all merge. The kind of celebration Ehrenreich celebrates is communal though ungoverned, and anti-hierarchical though ancient. In the god Dionysus she sees a liberating force needed but resisted by modern Western society.

More here.

From New Scientist:

People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language, Canadian scientists said on Friday.

Researchers said the extra effort involved in using more than one language appeared to boost blood supply to the brain and ensure nerve connections remained healthy – two factors thought to help fight off dementia.

“We are pretty dazzled by the results,” Professor Ellen Bialystok of Toronto’s York University said in a statement.

More here.

From The Economist:

Some gentlemen may prefer blondes, but almost all seem to like a waist to hip ratio of between 0.6 and 0.7. Breasts and bottoms should be substantial; waists should be slim. It should be the case all over the world and throughout human history.

That, at least, is the prevailing theory among evolutionary psychologists. The ratio in question correlates with hormone levels promoting maximum female fertility and health, so men who prefer curvy women will have more children. Devendra Singh, of the University of Texas, in Austin, has proved the point in the past by measuring the vital statistics of Playboy models. He found that centrefolds vary in weight but not in their hourglass shapes.

More here.

Thomas McGonigle in the Los Angeles Times:

John Armstrong knows he has an uphill battle in making a case for his subject, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The author even begins his book, “Love, Life, Goethe,” with the Dublin building-site joke he heard as a youth about how to say the German writer and philosopher’s name. “A new construction worker is a bit confused and asks: ‘Joist? Girder? What’s the difference?’ The foreman patiently explains: ‘Joist wrote Ulysses, Girder wrote Faust. ‘ ”

That brings us no closer to the correct pronunciation, but no matter. You know the name; you probably know that he wrote “Faust” and you might even know that he wrote “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and “Italian Journey.” More likely, though, Goethe — whom James Joyce regarded as being in the great writers’ “Holy Trinity” along with Dante and Shakespeare — is one of those classic writers you didn’t get around to in college, let alone high school.

Armstrong argues in this fine and useful book that Goethe was not only a literary genius but also someone who explored the human yearning for happiness in an imperfect world. Although it’s wise to heed Mississippi writer Walker Percy’s admonition that a self-help tract works only while one is reading it, Armstrong has written the perfect volume to read in early January as you break nearly every New Year’s resolution.

More here.

Ishmael Beah in the New York Times Magazine:

Sometimes I feel that living in New York City, having a good family and friends, and just being alive is a dream, that perhaps this second life of mine isn’t really happening. Whenever I speak at the United Nations, Unicef or elsewhere to raise awareness of the continual and rampant recruitment of children in wars around the world, I come to realize that I still do not fully understand how I could have possibly survived the civil war in my country, Sierra Leone.

Most of my friends, after meeting the woman whom I think of as my new mother, a Brooklyn-born white Jewish-American, assume that I was either adopted at a very young age or that my mother married an African man. They would never imagine that I was 17 when I came to live with her and that I had been a child soldier and participated in one of the most brutal wars in recent history.

More here.

Historian and civil rights activist John Hope Franklin explains how the movement toward Martin Luther King’s dream has been significant—that we can expect a black president ‘soon’—but ‘not nearly as effective as it should be.’

Karen Fragala Smith in Newsweek:

He assisted Thurgood Marshall prepare the Supreme Court case for 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, which ended up desegregating schools in America. He marched for civil rights in Montgomery, Ala., in 1965. He authored 15 books on history and race relations. Yet on the very night he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995—the highest honor bestowed upon an American civilian—he found himself in the ironic position of directing a woman to the coat check attendant after she handed him her ticket stub and demanded her coat. Currently the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University, Franklin, 92, remains committed to educating the public. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, he shared his views on civil rights, education, and race relations with NEWSWEEK’s Karen Fragala Smith. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Brown v. the Board of Education changed the law and made history, but what does it take for a society to eliminate discrimination from people’s hearts and minds?

John Hope Franklin: You don’t need to change their hearts; you need to change their practice. Here’s what the problem is. The Supreme Court decision was handed down on the 17th of May 1954, and what was the reaction of almost a third of the Senate? They challenged people not to obey the Supreme Court Decision. In other words, it was better to become outlaws than to obey a decision with which they disagreed. If you have people in responsible positions like the Senate not obeying the law, then what chance do you have of Joe [Citizen] obeying the law?

More here.

From The Seattle Times:

It’s not often in the life of a city that its identity transforms. Not just the way a place looks or functions, but the way people perceive it, at home and abroad. In Seattle, the last time such a major transition happened was the early 1960s, when the Century 21 Exposition thrust the disk of the Space Needle and the lacy arches of the Pacific Science Center into the urban skyline — and framed them with a new civic gathering place that became Seattle Center.

Now the city is poised to receive another image-changing landmark.

This Saturday, Seattle Art Museum (SAM) will introduce the Olympic Sculpture Park, a sweeping 9-acre green space at the north end of the downtown waterfront. One of the park’s prime features is its magnificent views. It presents a 360-degree panorama of Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, Mount Rainier and the surrounding city.

More here.

From Time (1998):

It is a testament to the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr. that nearly every major city in the U.S. has a street or school named after him. It is a measure of how sorely his achievements are misunderstood that most of them are located in black neighborhoods. Even after the Supreme Court struck down segregation in 1954, what the world now calls human-rights offenses were both law and custom in much of America. Before King and his movement, a tired and thoroughly respectable Negro seamstress like Rosa Parks could be thrown into jail and fined simply because she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus so a white man could sit down. A six-year-old black girl like Ruby Bridges could be hectored and spit on by a white New Orleans mob simply because she wanted to go to the same school as white children. A 14-year-old black boy like Emmett Till could be hunted down and murdered by a Mississippi gang simply because he had supposedly made suggestive remarks to a white woman.

The movement that King led swept all that away.

More here.

Will Hermes on David Byrne in The New York Times:

These days this 54-year-old polymath has been particularly busy. He is the curator of the 2007 Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall, which next month will feature a program of experimental folk music (including Vashti Bunyan, Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, Adem, Cibelle and CocoRosie) and a multi-artist concert based on the conceit of a single drone note. It will also include two nights of Mr. Byrne’s work: a performance of music from “The Knee Plays,” his 1985 theatrical collaboration with Robert Wilson, and a preview of “Here Lies Love,” his new multimedia song cycle based on the life and reign of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.

If that seems an unlikely subject, well, consider the fact that Mr. Byrne, like Ms. Marcos, clearly appreciates a good pair of shoes. “Hush Puppies came out with all these wild colors like seven, eight years ago,” he said after his opening, referring to his turquoise footwear. “I thought: ‘Who the hell is going to buy these? They look like they’re for some Vegas singer.’ I figured they wouldn’t be around long, so I got those and a yellow pair and a lime-green pair.”

More here.

Link to Mr.Byrne’s Journal here.

From the Boston Globe:

The First Lady’s Shocking Story:

Her battle with depression is well known, but in her new book, Shock, Kitty Dukakis, with help from award-winning medical journalist Larry Tye, shares how controversial shock therapy treatments may have saved her life.

September 17, 2006

It is June 20, 2001, Michael’s and my 38th wedding anniversary. It also is the end of my fourth month of depression, my crisis period. I’m normally a person with enormous enthusiasm for and interest in the world. All that is just missing now. Fun or enjoyment are things I cannot even imagine. I don’t speak to my kids on the phone, or to my sister. I do keep up with Dad, but he calls me more than I do him. The last two people I want worrying about me are my father, who is too old and dear, and my husband, who has had to worry for far too long. I have run out of options and I don’t want to drink.

These are the times when I am most vulnerable. Having a drink is the only way of bringing me away from the horrendous feelings I am having about myself. It starts out as a glass or two of wine. It generally ends up with vodka. The alcohol is like an amnesiac, it is able to take me away from the darkness. Last night I was so afraid I was going to drink that I had them check me in here at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Today I am going to try the only thing left: electro-convulsive therapy.

More here.

Find more of Larry Tye’s very interesting books here, and a 3quarksdaily post on his last book here.

Darold Treffert, MD at the Savant Syndrome Website of the Wisconsin Medical Society:

Greg Blackstock has never been happier. Since his recent retirement from the Washington Athletic Club, after 25 years as a dishwasher, he has been able to focus his attention on his two loves, drawing and music. In 2003 his remarkable drawings came to the attention of the Garde Rail Gallery in Seattle, Washington, specialists in ‘Outsider Art” and Greg has become a featured artist there.. Their Web site at www.garde-rail.com describes him thus:

“Greg exhibits many of the remarkable traits of the autistic savant; he speaks many languages, is an incredible mimic, and is able to recall events with uncanny precision… It is without doubt in our minds that Gregory Blackstock would be an artist under any circumstance — his autism did not make him become an artist, nor is he an artist because of it… Through his art and his music, Gregory has effectively been able to combat this disability and to meet the challenge with fantastic results… Gregory’s drawings are often large, on several sheets of paper pieced together by Greg with tape and glue. Using pencil, crayon, ink and marker, Gregory depicts insects and baskets with incredible precision, straight lines and test executed without the aid of a straight rule. The detail is minute, shading impeccable.”

Thanks to Anjuli Raza Kolb for introducing me to this interesting artist.

From Interior Design, December 2006:

The first annual Best of Year recipients were chosen from over 800 contenders.

El Greco and Pablo Picasso weren’t the only stars at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on November 30, 2006. Circulating among works by the master painters inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic structure were some 800 members of the international A&D community, convening to celebrate the winners of Interior Design’s first ever, annual Best of Year Awards.

Directly on the heels of the magazine’s Hall of Fame, which packed the Waldorf-Astoria’s grand ballroom with a record attendance of more than 1,500 people on November 29 and inducted Rand Elliott, Sergio Palleroni, Gaetano Pesce, Annabelle Selldorf, and Paul Siskin, the back-to-back events, says editor in chief Cindy Allen, “galvanized the design community—enabling us to honor the trifecta: people, projects, and products.”

This was the magazine’s first ever Best of Year (BoY) awards in which projects were divided into 19 categories—K&B, hospitality, and institutional among them—and voted on by Allen and judges Arthur Casas, Pam Light, Nick Luzietti, and Ali Tayar. “I’ve been on countless juries yet I don’t think I’ve been on one that had such a selection of A-listers opposite A-listers,” continues Allen.

More here.

THE cold war may not be quite over, after all. For more than a decade, writers of thrillers and spy novels — and not a few conservative strategists — have been bedeviled by the transformation of the evocative evil empire into an oligarchic quasi-capitalist power. The world has provided other villains, but the peculiar charm of the pallid, citrus-starved Slavic heavy persists. And a spate of recent deaths of Russian whistle-blowers — most recently the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow and the polonium 210 poisoning of the former spy Alexander Litvinenko in London — shows that the Soviet back story isn’t entirely buried. Like the Stalinesque corpse that keeps popping up in Tengiz Abuladze’s film “Repentance” (from the now-quaint Glasnost era), dark secrets have an afterlife. And when you dig them up, you sometimes find evil interred with the bones. The narrator and protagonist (by no stretch could you call him the hero) of Martin Amis’s new novel, “House of Meetings,” is an archetype of the eternal Soviet nightmare, a decorated war veteran who “raped my way across what would soon be East Germany” in the first three months of 1945. Now an octogenarian American exile, returning to Russia as a tourist, the unnamed man is recording his complicated history, dominated by the dozen years he spent as a political prisoner in a Soviet gulag, in a letter to his mythically named stepdaughter, Venus, whom he acquired peacefully and late in life, in the United States.

more from the NY Times Book Review here.

When Hogarth visited France in 1748, joining the trippers flooding to the newly opened continent after the war of the Austrian succession, he was arrested as a spy while sketching in Calais. Enraged, he immediately dramatised the event in The Gate of Calais, later turned into a bestselling print. In his painting, the town walls act as a great proscenium arch, framing a brightly lit stage where a fat cleric licks his lips as the cook carries the “Roast Beef of Old England” to the British inn – and Hogarth himself peers over a wall, like a stagehand making notes in the wings. Given his disdain of France as a land of “poverty, slavery and insolence”, it’s a surprise to learn that the Hogarth exhibition in Paris, due to reach Tate Britain in February, has been the Louvre’s most successful autumn exhibition for years. Instead of launching cries of xenophobia, French critics and visitors have simply accepted Hogarth’s polemic as inevitable for his time.

more from The Guardian here.

From The New York Times:

The Dickensian sweep of Bombay, as Vikram Chandra prefers to call the city — the cops on the take, the slums patrolled by mobsters, the whores turned Bollywood starlets, the headboards in million-dollar co-ops that slide away at the touch of a button to reveal hundreds of thousands in hidden rupees — is itself a protagonist in “Sacred Games,” Mr. Chandra’s long-awaited 900-page novel (excluding glossary) just published by HarperCollins.

The latest in what one London critic calls the “subcontinental doorstopper” school of epic Indian fiction, “Sacred Games” combines the ambition of a 19th-century social novel with a cops-and-Bhais detective thriller. (Bhai is a Hindi and Gujarati term for wiseguy.) The book, Mr. Chandra’s third, was the subject of an intense bidding war among New York publishers, one apparently presided over by Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity, who bestowed upon this 45-year-old cherubic-faced author a seven-figure advance.

More here.

From Nature:

Society celebrates its early birds, but for an unlucky few, the internal alarm clock goes off much too early. Now, studies of early-rising mice have led researchers to change their view of how biological clocks tell time, and could ultimately lead to new treatments for people with sleep disorders. Variation in sleep cycles is normal, says Louis Ptácek, a geneticist at the University of California at San Francisco. “In the general population, there’s a huge spectrum between people who habitually wake up without an alarm clock or coffee at 6 am, and those who would sleep until two in the afternoon if they didn’t have any other responsibilities,” says Ptácek.

But at the far reaches of normal behaviour are individuals whose internal curfews are set much earlier or later than those of the rest of the population. People who have familial advanced sleep phase syndrome — which Ptácek estimates affects only 0.3% of the population — usually wake up around 4 in the morning, and go to bed around 7 at night. “The time that most people are most awake is around dinnertime,” says Ptácek. “But that’s when these people are so sleepy that their face could fall into a bowl of soup.”

Ptácek and his colleagues previously showed that some people with the condition carried a mutation in a gene called period 2 (PER2), and levels of PER2 proteins are often critically low.

More here.

Ali Smith in The Guardian:

… Beasts of No Nation, a first novel by Uzodinma Iweala, who is 23 and a Harvard graduate and has worked with Nigerian child soldiers in rehabilitation. This is the live underbelly of such a situation, in a novel so scorched by loss and anger that it’s hard to hold and so gripping in its sheer hopeless lifeforce that it’s hard to put down. In the writing, Beasts of No Nation is totally and shockingly alive from its very first paragraph. “It is starting like this. I am feeling itch like insect is crawling on my skin, and then my head is just starting to tingle right between my eye, and then I am wanting to sneeze because my nose is itching, and then air is just blowing into my ear and I am hearing so many thing: the clicking of insect, the sound of truck grumbling like one kind of animal, and then the sound of somebody shouting TAKE YOUR POSITION RIGHT NOW! QUICK! QUICK QUICK! MOVE WITH SPEED! MOVE FAST OH! in voice that is just touching my body like knife.”

This novel is winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum award for first fiction, the Sue Kaufman prize for first fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the New York Public Library Young Lions fiction award.

Thanks to Anjuli Raza Kolb for giving me this very powerful book.

More here.

Catherine Wigginton in The Village Voice:

In Defending the Community College Equity Agenda, researchers point out that community colleges are key in providing higher education and can serve as a bridge to the middle class for immigrants, people of color, and those in the lowest income brackets. But achieving that mission has been difficult, say the book’s authors. Although four-fifths of the students entering community colleges say that their goal is to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 18 percent actually do that within eight years of their enrollment date.

That’s not only very low but very troubling, considering that nearly 50 percent of all credit-earning undergraduates in the United States are enrolled in community colleges. “I think people are often surprised at that number,” says Thomas Bailey, co-editor of the new volume and director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “These are institutions that aren’t on the radar.”

Besides having half of all students nationwide, community colleges enroll a disproportionate share of the country’s poorest students.

More here.

London Sun from the Little People blog:

More here.