Lolita at 50
Via MaudNewton, I learned of a brief and entertaining article examining Lolita at 50. The article explains the genesis of Nabokov’s idea, how his wife just managed to convince the author from burning the manuscript, and how many readers have mistaken certain elements over the years. Particularly interesting is the treatment of Lolita‘s foreward. In…
continue readingMcInerney Reviews Kunkel
Jay McInerney provides an interesting review of Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel in Sunday’s New York Times. In a quick wrap-up, McInerney describes the recent history of coming-of-age novels by writing, “In its modern form the American bildungsroman (the novel of formation) descends from The Catcher in the Rye‘ (1951). Reinvigorated by feminism in the 70’s,…
continue readingMeno to Appear in DC
Joe Meno, author of How the Hula Girl Sings is appearing Olsson’s in Dupont Circle, 1307 19th Street NW in Washington DC, tonight at 7pm. Meno’s new novel begins “exactly where most pulp fiction usually ends, with the vivid episode of the terrible crime itself. Three years later, Luce Lemay, out on parole for the…
continue readingBoD: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
If you’re like me, you only knew Arnold Schwarzenegger’s version of Conan. The muscle-bound, grunting misanthrope who famously uttered the response “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!” when asked the meaning of life. But the actual Conan stories, written by Robert E. Howard in…
continue readingAnother Sleepy Friday
I’m exhausted, suffering from allergy attacks and hungover from Nyquil, and it seems everyone else is too. So it’s another quiet day in the book world. If I see anything interesting today, or if I get otherwise inspired, I’ll post something up. But if I don’t talk to you, be sure to have a good…
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