April 20, 2012 This Week’s Reading Things We Love: Apollinaire, Office Chairs, Flabbergasting Vulgarity By The Paris Review On the newly redesigned Los Angeles Review of Books, Hua Hsu’s review of a rather fascinating microhistory of office chairs has me wondering whether Charles Darwin invented the wheeled version. It seems he “replaced the legs of his armchair with ‘cast-iron bed legs mounted on casters’ so that he could glide freely throughout his office.” He’s known to have taken daily walks along his “thinking path.” Could it be that the chair’s motion likewise aided him in formulating the theory of natural selection? —Nicole Rudick I’ve been on an Apollinaire kick, starting with Francis Steegmuller’s chatty 1963 biography, plus the new translation of Apollinaire’s love letters from the trenches and Louis Zukofsky’s strange bilingual homage, Le Style Apollinaire. —Lorin Stein “The Bible is, for the first time, being translated into Jamaican patois. It’s a move welcomed by those Jamaicans who want their mother tongue enshrined as the national language,” reported the BBC in December. Led by the Bible Society of the West Indies, the translation initiative began with the Gospel of Luke and is scheduled for completion in August of this year. The patois translation has many excited followers, including me, and, though I can’t understand a word, I’m moved by a truth revealed at the heart of this effort: that language shapes and solidifies a people’s identity and sense of belonging. It’s kind of as real as it gets. —Elizabeth Nelson “There’s one thing I want to make clear right off: my baby was a virgin the day she met Errol Flynn.” I’ve been wanting to read 1961’s The Big Love (Mrs. Florence Aadland as told to Tedd Thomey) ever since I saw Patricia Marx recommend it years ago. You can imagine my delight when I opened my mailbox to find my copy, and I devoured the story—a bizarre tell-all by the mother of the fifteen-year-old who had an affair with the middle-aged actor—within a day. Even to connoisseurs of the lurid, this is jaw-dropping stuff: “When the time came she told me everything she did with Errol Flynn … Everything. And in detail, because she and I love details and get a kick out of sharing things like that.” (It’s all like that.) After Flynn’s death, the liaison came to light, and Mrs. Aadland, convicted of contributing to the corruption of a minor, lost custody of seventeen-year-old Beverly. But she regrets nothing; the tone is as resolutely defiant as it is inappropriate. William Styron called the book “flabbergastingly vulgar.” —Sadie Stein
April 20, 2012 Bulletin Just Gotta Say… By Lorin Stein Nothing against Swamplandia! or The Pale King, but we can‘t help wishing the Pulitzer Board had gotten its act together—and chosen Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, the novella that appeared in our Summer 2002 issue. That would have been our first Pulitzer! As it is, it’s our first Pulitzer nomination. Train Dreams made its original appearance alongside fiction by Aleksandar Hemon and Mary Robison, interviews with Ian McEwan and Louis Begley, plus a radio play by Rick Moody … and we have a few copies in mint condition. Buy yours while supplies last.
April 20, 2012 Bulletin Hemingway Hotels, Customized Austen, Literary Shame By Sadie Stein Listen to Allen Ginsberg reading “What Would You Do If You Lost It?” at the 92nd Street Y in 1973. One can now purchase a customized classic—think Pride and Prejudice—featuring you as a character. Incredibly lovely calligraphy, in action. Ted Hughes’s ninety-two-year-old brother, Gerald, is writing a memoir about the boys’ Yorkshire childhood. Shameful reading confessions. The life of the pencil elitist. The Roots, Chris Martin, Regina Spektor, and … Captain Ahab. People of the Book unite! (Adorably.) Hemingway’s estate is starting a hotel chain. Hemingway Hotels and Resorts will be Papa-themed. Says the Web site, “An artist needs inspiration to flourish, and so Hemingway was drawn to the world’s most beautiful locales: Paris, Spain, Venice, Key West, Havana, Idaho. Hemingway Hotels will also be found there, and in other beautiful places around the world, in cities and in nature, on beaches and in mountains. Only select hotels will be approved for this iconic brand. For each Hemingway Hotel must be true to its environment, unique architecturally, and committed to providing guests with active, passionate one-of-a-kind experiences that deeply enrich their lives.”
April 19, 2012 On Television Dear Don Draper, I Think I Understand By Adam Wilson [facebook_ilike] Dear Don Draper, I think I know what’s wrong. Are you waking to pee in the middle of the night? Suffering from joint pain? Hot flashes? Vaginal dryness? Don, you’re going through menopause. I’m kidding. Sort of. No one doubts your manhood, especially not after Sunday’s display of muscle and plumbing. You’re a beefcake, buddy, grade-A American sirloin. When you stripped down to your undershirt it was like you were Spartacus entering the arena. Or, to put it in more modern terms, it was like you were Khal Drogo and the sink was your Khaleesi. Poor Pete Campbell in his dinky little party tie, face crimson and flush, fawning over you. Twice emasculated, and married to that ballbuster Trudy. She wears hair curlers to bed, Don. Hair curlers! Read More
April 19, 2012 Bulletin To Do List: A Celebration of Dovlatov By The Paris Review “The only Russian writer whose works will be read all the way through”—that’s what Joseph Brodsky called Sergei Dovlatov. This prophecy has proved true (at least, one work at a time) for some of us here at the Review. To read Dovlatov is to love him, whether he’s telling stories of his Armenian-Russo-Jewish family, rediscovering the 1960s in the contents of an old suitcase, or relating the misadventures of an alcoholic docent at a Pushkin museum. He writes short, he writes sad, he writes funny. Dovlatov was born in 1941 and grew up in Leningrad. Although he could not get published at home, his early creative work found an audience in the West after friends helped smuggle it out of the USSR. Facing a campaign of harassment by the KGB, the writer emigrated to Queens in 1978, where he wrote books, stories, and journalism. He died in 1990. Tomorrow there will be a celebration of Dovlatov’s work at the Frants Gallery in Soho, with readings by Lara Vapnyar and Barry Yourgrau (whose essay on Dovlatov, “The Troubadour of Honed Banality” appeared on the Daily). The night will mark the opening of an exhibition of Dovlatov illustrations by Alexander Florensky. For details on the event, see the Frants Gallery Web site.
April 19, 2012 On the Shelf Horsemaning, Mars, and a Tiny Book By Sadie Stein Descendants of Charles Dickens and J.R.R. Tolkien team up on a series of audio fantasy books aimed at young readers. The books, by (J.R.R.’s grandson) Michael Tolkien, will be recorded by Dickens’s great-great grandson, Gerald. A miniature book of fairy tales created for Queen Mary’s dollhouse in 1922 will be reproduced, human-scale. Help a D.C. school fill its library. Tracy K. Smith, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, discusses her book Life on Mars. Typeface obsessive? These temporary tattoos are for you. Brontë sisters action figures. (Via NYDN) The Enid Blyton diet. If you google about the author, Thomas Friedman’s bio appears. Here’s why. Planking is so last year. Meet the revival of horsemaning.