^^^
― but he go's to a resturang and then die in a toilet (Jon Lewis), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:06 (eleven years ago) link
he talks about his inspiration at length here:
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/228/the-art-of-fiction-no-177-jonathan-lethem
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:07 (eleven years ago) link
and he mentions borges and calvino. it's all good. PoMo pastiche is cool. whatevs. no bigs. i was a kathy acker fan back in the day. can't read burroughs to save my life though. or pynchon.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
it is a bit weird for them to do a scifi issue with only 'literary' writers, i mean, not weird, it is the new yorker, but it would be cooler if they asked ben bova or something (never actually read anything by that guy) to do a story
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
lethem is a sci-fi writer, or a former sci-fi writer at least
― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 5:54 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
RONG
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:13 (eleven years ago) link
oh cool now this thread is about authenticity
― max, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:14 (eleven years ago) link
nerds are the worst
― Mordy, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:15 (eleven years ago) link
im staying out of that argument but i do think it would be cool if they went pulpy.
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:16 (eleven years ago) link
we all loved blade runner.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:16 (eleven years ago) link
who would've thought the new yorker thread would get mired in arguments about writing and class distinction
― jump them into a gang - into the absurd (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:24 (eleven years ago) link
lol at "mired" - it's been like 20 posts over an hour
― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:27 (eleven years ago) link
plus hardboiled scifi could have been its own genre before lethem got to it. don't know when the first scifi detective story hit the racks but it was before he was born.
http://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/iss/400w/24/370241/1034517.jpg
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:27 (eleven years ago) link
anyways read the sam lipsyte story, it's not sci-fi at all but it's great
confession: i never actually read nyer fiction
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:28 (eleven years ago) link
i almost never do either but i like lipsyte a lot so i read this one, it's not very "nyer fiction" in style, it's absurd and funny and has lots of swearing
― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:30 (eleven years ago) link
me three
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:30 (eleven years ago) link
lethem makes new scientist's top ten list:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/04/top-10-greatest-science-fiction-detective-novels.html
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:30 (eleven years ago) link
― jump them into a gang - into the absurd (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:31 (eleven years ago) link
i read it when its lorrie moore or alice munro. that's about it for the most part.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:31 (eleven years ago) link
or saunders
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:32 (eleven years ago) link
col.?
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:34 (eleven years ago) link
n
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:39 (eleven years ago) link
geo.
posts about how long a thread is, how many comments are filling it, the kinds of comments being posted, how frequently things are being posted, the quality of what is being posted, etc --> these are the sounds of ilx clearing its own throat. (nb i do not exempt this comment from this generalization.)
― Mordy, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:39 (eleven years ago) link
*moves bookmark*
― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 19:43 (eleven years ago) link
― scott seward, Tuesday, May 29, 2012
thirded. I will read the Lipsyte story though.
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 19:51 (eleven years ago) link
I don't care if you're white black or a fucking bum off of the streets. If you write about shooting aliens, flying ships, wearing spacesuits, drinking hennessy, and whatever else, I'll buy your book. If you write about the economy and how its hurts off-world workers, fuck you. If you write about your telekenisis or some equally retarded nerd shit, fuck you. That basically how I break it down to an extent.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 21:50 (eleven years ago) link
you should enter that in the caption contest
― jump them into a gang - into the absurd (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 23:12 (eleven years ago) link
Whitehead's last novel is a zombie book. Not sci-fi but genre (also not great).
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 23:18 (eleven years ago) link
i never read the fiction either, unless it's saunders. or wasn't that atwood story in the nyer? i read the lorrie moore last week because it was short (not that i have anything against lorrie moore). guess they needed something tiny after grann went apeshit
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 23:40 (eleven years ago) link
was the grann thing good? i didn't read it yet. i think our subscription expired. but that's still online i think. maybe i'll read it tonight.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 30 May 2012 00:48 (eleven years ago) link
the grann thing was grebt but . . . he is so fucking detailed about things that happened 50 years ago that i found myself thinking o rly
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 30 May 2012 00:54 (eleven years ago) link
what is the grann thing
― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 30 May 2012 00:58 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/28/120528fa_fact_grann
― scott seward, Wednesday, 30 May 2012 01:02 (eleven years ago) link
double-issue this week kk - catch up
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 30 May 2012 01:04 (eleven years ago) link
here's a response to the genre fiction piece
http://entertainment.time.com/2012/05/23/genre-fiction-is-disruptive-technology/
― the acquisition and practice of music is unfavourable to the health of (abanana), Thursday, 31 May 2012 01:54 (eleven years ago) link
Two weeks now (four weeks into new subscription) no issues in the mailbox. Wtf.
― Pacific Rinko (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 31 May 2012 02:11 (eleven years ago) link
"(And to say that such books “transcend” the genres they’re in is bollocks, of the most bollocky kind. As soon as a novel becomes moving or important or great, critics try to surgically extract it from its genre, lest our carefully constructed hierarchies collapse in the presence of such a taxonomical anomaly.)"
will have his babies. five stars. kudos.
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 May 2012 02:47 (eleven years ago) link
that was so awesome. thanks for that. i've been thinking about this for WEEKS. even before the sci-fi issue and all that. i've even been writing about this very thing. uncanny. and he says it so well. love it.
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 May 2012 02:54 (eleven years ago) link
see, now i can't even read the krystal thing it would drive me insane.
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 May 2012 03:00 (eleven years ago) link
i could talk about this all night. but i have to go to bed. food for friggin' thought. it dawned on me not that long ago that sooooo much of what i have written is some sort of mortal combat against that standard new yorker attitude. or just standard lit crit attitude. or music crit attitude. it does totally drive me insane and i guess i just don't understand how at this late date after all that has gone on and all the micro-genre studies and the french and kael and trash and camp and high and low and pop and the 60's and 70's and jeez just decades of scholarship devoted to everything and anything and cases made for manga and death metal and EVERYTHING you name it EVERYTHING how in the world there are so many ignorant dismissive SMART - supposedly - people out there who get so many things wrong and who pass that wrongness on from generation to generation. how is that possible? it always surprises me.
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 May 2012 03:12 (eleven years ago) link
i keep waiting for all the old people to die, but they keep making new ones!
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 May 2012 03:13 (eleven years ago) link
i wrote this on facebook the other day:
"i always cringe when i read a blurb on the back of an SF book that says that the book is so good that it "transcends the genre". UGH. how about the book is so good that it is "a really good example of how good the genre can be"??!!"
but the guy in Time said it better. jesus, in Time! when was the last time i read anything in Time? 1990? Maybe a doctor's office...
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 May 2012 03:17 (eleven years ago) link
glad to see colson whitehead give a shout-out to michael weldon's psychotronic encyclopedia of film in the article on b-movies. i spent years with that book next to my tv too. i hope whitehead's novels are better though cause this autobiographical essay is slack, not much going on besides the movies.
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Thursday, 31 May 2012 09:36 (eleven years ago) link
a New Yorker article about michael weldon and his odyssey from proto-punk cleveland rocker to underground movie scholar would've been classic
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Thursday, 31 May 2012 09:40 (eleven years ago) link
That Time article is great. Much more focussed on the present than the New Yorker piece, which seemed obsessed with rehearsing arguments from the 1940s about writers who entered the canon years ago. We need to be told that Chandler was an elegant stylist? I'm not a big genre reader but if I were I'd have quickly grown sick of the condescension and faint praise.
― Get wolves (DL), Thursday, 31 May 2012 10:01 (eleven years ago) link
and i really enjoyed the Time article too!
― Mad God 40/40 (Z S), Thursday, 31 May 2012 13:26 (eleven years ago) link
I think the point of those blurbs is to try to convince non-genre fans to read the book, which is ultimately a good thing for the genre, no?
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Thursday, 31 May 2012 14:05 (eleven years ago) link
maybe from the publisher's point of view, but scott's right, it's just dumb that that mindset still exists in "literary fiction" circles. not that i've read the new yorker genre fiction article and now i don't have to!
― horseshoe, Thursday, 31 May 2012 14:32 (eleven years ago) link
"literary fiction" is just another genre anyway
― horseshoe, Thursday, 31 May 2012 14:33 (eleven years ago) link