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Sorrow at Sills Bend (Free subscription) | 09/26/2008
In downtime from 'work' work, I'm re-reading Mary McCarthy's The Group (truly excellent post about it, by litove, at the other end of that link), and being most forcibly struck again by what a great novel it is, smart and funny and rich and dense, and feeling very excited about the prospect of teaching it next year in my 20thC+ women writing course. It feels like the centrepiece or anchor of the course...
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So...What's Next?!? (Free subscription) | 09/16/2008
Quote of the Day - Mary McCarthy - "We are the hero of our own story."I saw this quote today and it seemed to fit perfect. You know how I always read these metaphysical books and really believe in the...
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Room Eight (Free subscription) | 09/08/2008
“Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘ and’ and ‘ the .’”-- Literary lioness Mary McCarthy commenting on the highly overrated Lillian Hellman I’m taking the day off, so I decided to compile a partial list of the lies spread by State Senate candidate Dan Squadron. I apologize that the list is incomplete, but a day has only 24 hours. As has been previously documented, State Senate Candidate Dan...
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Slog (Free subscription) | 07/18/2008
The brouhaha earlier in the week about A Streetcar Named Desire -- here , here , here , here --which devolved into an accusation ( here ) that I was "hiding behind" Mary McCarthy (which is sorta true), reminded me of the time, back in 2003 or 2004, I photocopied McCarthy's review of Franny and Zooey (reprinted in this book ) for Sean Nelson, who is a Salinger fan and something of a Salinger expert....
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Slog (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
When one knows deeply that he is wrong, as Mr. Frizzelle does, there is nothing to be done but to insult the enemy and hide behind an older writer . Not being wrong myself, I don't mind elaborating. Mr. Kiley writes this: Angela Pierce as Blanche gives a slick, orthodox performance, and sails through Blanche's late-play mad scenes without succumbing to the crazy-person caricature that has wrecked...
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Slog (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Mary McCarthy practiced criticism, unlike Jen Graves, who practices criticism when she writes about art but merely deploys synonyms for "I don't like it" when she writes about plays on Slog that she thinks I have thought too highly of. Cornered just now about her uncharacteristically undefended critique (Blanche, we are told, is "bad"--how laconic!), Ms. Graves said that she did not want to go into...
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Bill Peschel (Free subscription) | 06/21/2008
B orn today: Increase Mather, minister, educator, author, Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1639; Joseph Kesselring, playwright, short-story writer, New York City, 1902; Al Hirschfeld, illustrator, St. Louis, Mo., 1903; Jean Paul Sartre, philosopher, Paris, 1905; Mary McCarthy, novelist, memoirist, essayist, Seattle, Wash., 1912; Françoise Sagan (ps. Françoise Quoirez), novelist, playwright, Cajarc,...
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Brit Lit Blogs (Free subscription) | 06/09/2008
Waggish reads John Williams' Stoner : I cannot recall any other academic novel that treats its subject material with such unremitting gravity. The standard model of an academic novel is to either indulge in high melodrama (Mary McCarthy, Iris Murdoch) or to make light of the intellectual pretenses of its characters (Kinsley Amis's overrated Lucky Jim , Malcolm Bradbury's far funnier Stepping Westward...
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Bookninja (Free subscription) | 05/20/2008
Why are critics so mean? I mean, boo-hoo. Literary criticism is famously red in tooth and claw. Terry Eagleton, Mary McCarthy and Dale Peck are just a few reviewers who have made their names with funny and often frankly showy cruelty. With the book market more crowded than ever before, a bracing and briny critique can [...]
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Articles Database (Free subscription) | 04/27/2008
Let me ask you an unexpected question: How would you like your life to be in 2035? The happy ending is our national belief. -Mary McCarthy This is a very interesting question. Why? By setting some goals for what you want from life, you can begin to take actions that will improve your circumstances, even if circumstances are [...]
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The Earth Times Online Newspaper (Free subscription) | 04/26/2008
Cork, Ireland - Acclaimed US contemporary visual artist, Spencer Tunick, best known for his ability to pull large nude crowds, has put out a call for those prepared to bare all in public in Ireland for his latest project. The sometimes controversial ...
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CRITICAL MASS (Free subscription) | 04/21/2008
Sunday Styles has a profile of the novelist and Martin Amis-attached Isabel Fonseca , heralding the publication of her novel Attachment . While on staff at the Times Literary Supplement , Fonseca apparently counted "among her many admirers, to judge from contemporary accounts, ...Clive James, Bill Buford, Salman Rushdie and the actor John Malkovich ." A challenge to profilers of female novelists: Attempt...
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The Mumpsimus (Free subscription) | 04/18/2008
The latest issue of BOMB magazine includes a conversation between Jonathan Lethem and Lydia Millet -- it's unfortunately not online, but it's so good that it's really worth the price of the magazine to read it. One of the best interviews I've read in a while. Here's a sample: Jonathan Lethem: I was recently reading an essay by Mary McCarthy, a quite brilliant, free-ranging one that she first gave as...
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Corn and Oil (Free subscription) | 04/09/2008
Interesting conglomeration of articles and posts and information about counting homeschoolers recently. I was just reading Dana Hanley’s most recent article in Heart of the Matter. The HotM article is chock full of information, but the comments also got my attention as Sallie noted this: Dana — The Marine Corps is now conducting a poll, at [...]
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Prairie Weather (Free subscription) | 04/03/2008
How did narcissism take hold in America like a social disease? A lot of people out there are trying to find the source. Certainly there was more than a hint in a nice essay on children in the American novel...
