The New Criterion
The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.
- The Times Literary Supplement
Fiction ChronicleNovember 2009 Margin walkers by Stefan Beck On The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker; Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers; Homer & Langley, by E. L. Doctorow; and Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Nicholson Baker may well be the most unpredictable writer working today. To take a random sampling of his output, which is the only kind of sampling his output permits, he has dissected his obsession with John Updike (U & I: A True Story); written a phone-sex novelization (Vox) that was given as a gift by the twentieth century’s most infamous intern to her boss; and condemned Churchill’s prosecution of the war against Germany (Human Smoke). His shifting interests resemble the trivial pursuit called a “Wikirace,” wherein participants try to get from, say, “ukelele” to “stem cell research” in the fewest possible Wikipedia links. It is thus not at all surprising that Baker’s new novel, The Anthologist, is about a mid-list poet called Paul Chowder who is too inef ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 28 November 2009, on page 27 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Margin-walkers-4311
rate this article for your user profile
E-mail to friend
|
by Stefan Beck On The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco & Cain by José Saramago. by Stefan Beck On The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Slim by Jonathan Coe, Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell & The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. by Stefan Beck On Freedom, 03, A Visit from the Goon Squad & Dogfight, A Love Story. by Stefan Beck On The Privileges by Jonathan Dee, Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett, The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris & The Ask by Sam Lipsyte.
Webcasts
Anthony Daniels on the Euro Crisis
Andrew C. McCarthy: The Muslim Threat
Roger Kimball: The Grim Future of Statism Weblog 
|
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}