The
Los Angeles Times comments that "Bill Clinton got a $15-million advance to write his memoir, "My Life." And he was a president who'd been impeached for an embarrassing dalliance in the Oval Office. But publishers told the Associated Press' Hillel Italie that George W. Bush was unlikely to get anything near that kind of advance if he decided to write his own version of his tumultuous eight years in office. For one thing, he's not known as an introspective guy given to self-criticism, seen as key to sales.
"I think any success will depend to a very large extent on [the content of] the book," said Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, which published former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan's tough take on the White House. America and other contemporary mysteries I am a great believer in the contemporary novel, the contemporary setting - but I wonder what it actually means. Speaking about this the other night, I don't think the blow-by-blow accounts you get on blogs are really what I'm talking about - and god help the blogger who turns real-time rant into a novel. What's left there? It's why, despite his hope and protestations, Tom Wolfe's New Journalism never became the literature he'd envisaged. "In Cold Blood" aside - was there a classic that came out of it? Wolfe's own masterpiece, "Bonfire of the Vanities", as acute a tale of the 80s as you could wish for, was, like "Wall Street", a product of 1987, and, of course, a fiction. There's a piece in today's Times wondering how an Obama presidency will affect the arts. The arts, in my mind, it seems, is most affected by 3 things: money (some kind of patronage), opposition (something to rail against), and, the zeitgeist (which can just as easily be described demographically.)"
How Leonardo DiCaprio survived the Titanic
The UK Times notes that "the film that made him also taught Leonardo DiCaprio that he didn’t want to make another one like it ... DiCaprio isn’t particularly interested in pandering to the millions who fell in love with Jack Dawson. He’s serious, and serious about being serious. “For me, unless it’s stimulating and invigorating, unless it’s a compelling story - not necessarily a movie that will make tons of money - then it’s a waste of time,” he says."
Does Fiction Reflect Life?
The Art of Fiction blog wonders what a contemporary novel about 2008 would turn out to be? "America looks large, but in a way, as someone who only visited once, in 1995, I can't begin to contemplate. If the evangelical Christian America seemed mysterious, I'm not sure that an America of "change" will provide any less so to this outsider. The use of the word "socialism" by both McCain and Obama seems to come from an entirely different lexicon than my own. Yet, the America of "The Wire" or "Sopranos" is - if not recognisable, is certainly not mysterious. In some ways, the pseudo-religious aspects of "Battlestar Galactica" are the more mysterious.
Yet, what would an English novel cover? ... Perhaps we are moving beyond the age of "apology" - the Englishman (or rather, British citizen), as David Brent or Frank Spencer. Our new heroes are winners, ruthless, internationalised, and... not universally loved. So be it. Perhaps the new Bond is a sign of this. Yet, the boorishness of the age - (Mssrs. Ross and Brand, stand up) - has never seemed so out of step as a result. Which is real? Perhaps its the renewed respect for our soldiers returning from what still seem like endless conflicts...and a reminder that, like America, the military dead and injured, aren't necessarily the products of the British public school system, but the ordinary man and woman, accepting the odds, taking the chance.
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The 45th anniversary issue of The New York Review of Books has some excellent material online, including a very long piece by J.M. Coetzee on Irène Némirovsky.
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What do Presidents read?
The UK Guardian notes that The Candidate "ends with Redford's hero unable to cope with his victory; so drained and compromised by the campaign that he loses sight of why he ran in the first place. "What do we do now?" he murmurs, as the mob runs in to claim him. JFK liked Spartacus and Bond, while Reagan favoured High Noon. Clinton appreciated Field of Dreams, whereas the current incumbent is a big fan of Austin Powers and Meet the Parents (reportedly choking with laughter when Ben Stiller's character is revealed to be named "Gay Focker").
I've always been suspicious of those lofty reading lists that insist that Bush likes nothing better than curling up with Camus or boning up on The Hidden World of Islamic Women (no doubt with some tissues at the ready). But a president's choice of films strikes me as more revealing. Maybe it's now time for the president-elect to watch that final scene (although, come on, of course he's watched it), if only to know what pitfalls to avoid."
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John Mullan in The Guardian lists "Ten of the best fake deaths", beginning with Volpone, by Ben Jonson and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling.
Volpone. "Aided by his parasite, Mosca, Volpone, a rich Venetian with a satirical bent, feigns sickness and persuades a series of avaricious flatterers that each will be his heir. Finally, Volpone fakes his death in order to reveal the hypocrisy of these predators - only to be tricked in turn by his own servant.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling
In the third part of the Potter roman-fleuve, Peter Pettigrew pretends that Sirius Black has killed him, cutting off one of his own fingers to make it seem that the rest of him has been blasted to atoms. For 12 years he adopts the guise of Ron Weasley's pet rat, Scabbers. But the severed digit gives him away."
Quote of the Week
"Work is the grand cure of all the maladies that ever test mankind". Thomas Carlyle.
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