Reviews and News:
What was news like before the 20th century? Pretty much the same as it is now…only sung, in verse.
James Joyce’s unpunctuated rigmarole of numerical spangablasm: “Joyce was good. He was a good writer. He makes me grumpy a lot, especially Ulysses, but he was good. There are at least twenty irresistible qualities to Ulysses. At or near the top of the stack, at least for me, is the way he traffics in what I call ‘hyperrealistic unnecessaries.’”
Scott Beauchamp reviews Evan Kindley’s Poet-Critics and the Administration of Culture, a history of the “reciprocal relationship between power and precariousness played out among poet-critics in the first half of the twentieth century.”
Laura Freeman reviews Hilary Spurling’s “masterly” biography of Anthony Powell: “Powell was in his forties when he published the first volume of his own Dance in 1951. He was already the author of five stand-alone novels, husband to Lady Violet Pakenham, daughter of the fifth Earl of Longford, and father to two sons, Tristram and John. In the war he had been a fire-watcher and desk-wallah. To his regret, he never saw action. The title of the first volume — A Question of Upbringing — came, Spurling tells us, from a stomach-lurching incident when an acquaintance offered Powell a ride home one night. Powell watched as three larger cars sped towards them abreast on the Great West Road. The driver was determined not to give way, muttering to himself: ‘This is just going to be a question of upbringing.’”
Technology in the classroom doesn’t help learning.
On learning to read again: “I’m not sure exactly when it was that I began noticing similar tendencies in myself. That if a book didn’t catch me on the first page, I would either lay it aside or force myself to finish it with a kind of grim determination that seemed antithetical to that old love of reading. That I was becoming less inclined to grapple with language, even beautiful and metaphoric language. That I was now looking for predictability rather than mystery. That if I started to suspect a novel was going to slay me emotionally, my tendency was to veer off and find something ‘safer.’”
The Book of Mormon sets new record for most expensive manuscript ever sold. The printer’s manuscript was sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for $35 million.
A music critic on why it’s so difficult to write about performances: “It’s very hard to convey sounds through words.”
Essay of the Day:
In Standpoint, Milton Ezrati asks people why they visit art museums. They’re not quite sure; neither is he:
“Though my interest in art has intensified over the years, museums lure me less and less. My problem, doubtless, is the ever larger and more enthusiastic crowds. Despite this reluctance, personal obligations recently forced several museum visits on me, in several cities, too: my hometown, New York, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Dallas, and elsewhere. Each visit left me with the same four powerful impressions: The institutions seemed more eager than ever to push their collections, and visitors seemed remarkably eager to consume. At the same time, I got the feeling that the visitors wanted something other than the museums were offering. Strongest of all was the sense that neither party had given much thought to what the exchange ought to involve.
“With a background in economics, I naturally had a hankering after something more concrete than feelings. Without statistics to hand, I did my best on this front by engaging visitors and, when I could, museum staff in conversation about their expectations and intentions. Unscientific, I know, but instructive nonetheless. A few visitors, though a very few, expressed a serious interest in the exhibits. A minority of them put my art background into the shade and quickly. Most of the visitors I encountered spoke of doing the ‘kids’ some good, though what good remained vague. Some referenced an obligation to see a special exhibit that had received a lot of publicity, though no one seemed quite sure of the nature of that obligation. Many of the museum people acknowledged that most visitors had little serious interest but hoped the visit might ‘plant a seed’. Other officials emphasised what might be termed a multicultural angle. They hoped to expose people to different perspectives. Some administrators spoke cynically about tolerating the crowds and the expanded gift shop as a way to finance the collection, though for what purpose they never made clear.
“I had hoped for something else. I wanted the museum people to give me a hint of why they chose to emphasise one exhibit over another or, more important, why their curator valued one work over another. Especially when the relativist, multicultural talk got thick, and the professionals, unbidden, emphasised how no one piece was inherently superior to another, I felt a powerful impulse to ask, ‘Then why this particular stuff?’ Usually I resisted that urge. It seemed too aggressive in the circumstance. When frustration forced out the question anyway, some condescend and some tried to clarify. Nothing satisfied. When I asked something like this of visitors, I hoped, in vain, for something along the lines of a response that had deeply impressed me in my youth.”
Photo: Storm cell over New Mexico
Poem: Wendy Videlock, “Were You Young Again”
Get Prufrock in your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.
