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By BEN SZMANDA
Know-it-alls love to point out that in fact, no, the US is not a democracy, but a republic. They’re right; annoying, but right. Just as true, and even less recognized, is that the government left us by the authors of the Constitution disappeared long ago. This is mourned in […]
By BEN SZMANDA
With an election coming up, and the world’s economic system going through a total meltdown, it may be a good time to take a peek at John R MacArthur’s new book You Cant Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America. MacArthur argues that the American public is dangerously removed from […]
By BEN SZMANDA
There was a huge freak out when AM Homes’ novel the End of Alice was published, and it’s easy to see why: 270 pages of listening to a pedophile child killer reminisce, fantasize, and keep up with his correspondences is pure controversy bait. It’s also abusive reading. Really, a first person narrative? And […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I don’t think there has ever been a time when I completely agreed with Christopher Hitchens. Prior to 9/11 he was a Trotskyite; days after the attacks, Hitchens did a costume change and re-emerged as a military interventionist –one that used the same arguments as the neo-conservatives, only with far more skill, and […]
By BEN SZMANDA
If you are going to write a piece of very short fiction, you have to make sure that you imply far more than what goes down on paper; the shorter the story, the more demands are placed on every word. Why am I regurgitating truisms at you? Because I came across someone […]
By BEN SZMANDA
At the beginning of the 20th century, China had essentially become spoils for the various European empires to divvy up amongst themselves. The Manchu dynasty was incredibly weak: Its remaining strength had been turned on any reform minded citizen brave enough to attempt to modify Confucian traditions. Resentment brewed. Even […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I should be irritated that Pafko at the Wall even exists as a book. This is nothing but the prologue to Don DeLillo’s epic novel Underworld, prepackaged and sold as a stand alone work. Little has been updated or changed; the real novelty seems to be an admittedly great picture on […]
By BEN SZMANDA
But don Miguel, the optimism, the innocence, the aura of possibility you experienced have been largely drained away, and the universe is closing in on us again. Like you, we, to seem to be standing at the end of one age, and on the threshold of another. We, too, have been […]
By BEN SZMANDA
Jenny Erpenbeck’s disturbing, beautifully constructed novella The Book of Words seems to take place in Argentina during the ”Dirty War” of the 1970s. Much like the name of the narrator herself, however, the name of the country is never mentioned. Maybe that’s the point. The narrator, a young girl, complains to […]
By BEN SZMANDA
This may bum you out: There are people out there that think Vlad Tepes was not in fact the direct source for Dracula. I know, I hate it when some snotty researcher comes along and destroys cherished childhood knowledge too. That whole Pluto thing still gets me angry. But on […]
By BEN SZMANDA
Chuck Palahniuk may be the best writer in the world, I don’t know, I haven’t read him. The books he endorses leave a lot to be desired, though. After reading something by Amy Hempel, an experience so miserable that it left me in a state of hysterical paralysis, I can’t really […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I was looking for the right baseball metaphor, but I think it’s best to just say it directly: I messed up a few weeks ago. There is no way that my description of Gerald’s Party by Robert Coover did it justice. I didn’t go into detail about the right stuff, […]
By BEN SZMANDA
It takes a while before you can get a glimpse of what’s going on in Robert Coover’s bizarre novel Gerald’s Party. For the first 50 pages or so, all you really get is a blur of movement; there is an endless, feverish, parade of people, half finished drunken dirty jokes, grotesque scenes, […]
By BEN SZMANDA
1. First Major Precept
On Killing
A disciple of the Buddha shall not himself kill, encourage others to kill, kill by expedient means, praise killing, rejoice at witnessing killing, or kill through incantation or deviant mantras. He must not create the causes, conditions, methods, or karma of killing, and shall not intentionally kill any living […]
By BEN SZMANDA
It’s an old platitude that writers are best when they are writing what they know. I have no idea whether that’s correct or not, but if it is, TC Doyle knows a lot. His book of short stories, Without a Hero, is all over the place. Most of them are […]
By BEN SZMANDA
When I was talking about the Telegraph’s list of cult books last week, I said that I normally don’t like to include graphic novels in the same category as the regular kind of novel. Hopefully this wasn’t taken the wrong way: I have no real issue with graphic novels as an art form; […]
By BEN SZMANDA
Lists are fun, and one of the really great things about spending all your time on the computer is you get to pour over other peoples lists, get indignant at their stupid choices and write them overheated, threatening letters about it. Or at least I do. The Telegraphs list of the 50 top “cult books” […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I had never seen the movie House of Sand and Fog, nor had I ever read the book, or anything else by Andre Dubus III. I’ve heard good things about all of the above though, so I thought I’d give him a try: I picked up his 1989 book of short stories The […]
By BEN SZMANDA
A biography is the attempt to recreate the life of a subject. But this is a doomed project: There is no way to capture the complexity of a life without excluding other, possibly contradictory facts. As near as I can figure, this is the central point of Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot, where we […]
By BEN SZMANDA
It’s hard to think of another writer that has the stylistic control of John Banville. His descriptions, which are always laced carefully together, create lush moods that color the scenery with exactly the emotion he wants to portray. Banville puts his talents to extraordinary use in his 2005 novel The Sea: a startling, […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I am not a giant fan of pop radio. That doesn’t mean, though, that I think Justin Timberlake is an agent of the Queen of England. Likewise, I despise George Bush, but I don’t think he is a reptile from space. (Link note: Do whatever you like on Icke’s site — he’s nutty […]
By BEN SZMANDA
In his well known 2001 essay “Tell me how does it feel?” James Wood derisively called Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth an example of “hysterical realism,” which he defines as “not exactly magical realism, but magical realism’s next stop. It is characterised by a fear of silence. This kind of realism is a […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I don’t know much about Voodoo. I wish that I could say that I knew more after reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse, but I wouldn’t repeat my impressions with a lot of confidence. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth a look –it’s very, very, enjoyable– but it reads as if […]
By BEN SZMANDA
There is something to be said for comedy. There’s a lot to be said for it, really: Look at the news, or listen to the homeless guy you try to avoid. Life, as they say, sucks, and those people out there who have the ability to help us forget that ugly […]
By BEN SZMANDA
So I’ve talked about John Barth before, and I’m sure that I’ve described some of the strange approaches he takes to his story telling. But I think it is worth pointing out that these wild narrative flights of his were completely absent from one of his first books, the Floating Opera. Still, even here where […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I’m not sure which story — it has been years — but somewhere in his book Tales of Ordinary Madness, Bukowski points out that your attitude towards the status quo is reflected in your attitude towards the cops. It makes sense. It also casts an interesting light on our occasional bouts of fascination […]
By BEN SZMANDA
I will at some point go three weeks with out launching off on a tangent that makes me sound like an insane old man writing his local paper. Start the clock next time though because I just got back from Borders, God help me, and I have to say it: I really […]
By BEN SZMANDA
After last weeks debacle, I have to tell you that Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City was the best mouthwash I could have grabbed. If you haven’t read this one, you really, truly need to pick it up. It’s a slick, fast paced, and ultimately touching portrayal of a 20-something yuppie […]
By BEN SZMANDA
Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, we do.
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do.
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do, we do.
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do!
There. […]
By BEN SZMANDA
The only time cable news condescends to talk about something other than Britney Spears — or whatever fluff story they’re obsessed with that day– is during the elections. Unlike the in-depth coverage of Britney, though, their election reporting is boiled down to poll readings, inane commentary on the candidate’s hairstyles and a […]