Archive for November, 2006
Monday, November 20th, 2006
Kakutani slams Pynchon and the return of the dot-com boom
After her glowing review of Dave Eggers’s new book, Michiko Kakutani finds fault in Thomas Pynchon’s inability to create one true character in his new novel, Against the Day. She writes:
Whereas Mr. Pynchon’s last novel, the stunning “Mason & Dixon,” demonstrated a new psychological depth, depicting its two heroes as full-fledged human beings, not merely [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
New Dave Eggers, or Kakutani gives a positive review!
Michiko Kakutani gave Dave Eggers’s new novel What Is the What a glowing review in the New York Times today. She calls the book, which I am currently reading,
a startling act of literary ventriloquism that recounts the harrowing story of a Sudanese refugee named Valentino Achak Deng, while reminding us just how eloquently the author [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
Paul Auster on why he writes
In Paul Auster’s acceptance speech for Spain’s Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters, the author expresses one of my favorite themes–that art and literature and writing are at once useless and redemptive, important and inconsequential, and above all, inevtiable.
This need to make, to create, to invent is, no doubt, a fundamental human impulse. But to [...]
