June 28, 2010 In Memoriam Ben Sonnenberg (1936-2010) By Lorin Stein The Paris Review salutes Ben Sonnenberg, the founding editor of Grand Street, who died last Thursday at the age of seventy-three. He was a hero to many of us. Although Grand Street may never have had more than a few thousand subscribers, it was one of the great literary magazines of our time. Recently the artist Matteo Pericoli drew the view from Sonnenberg’s window and asked Sonnenberg to describe what he saw there every day. The view and text are excerpted from Pericoli’s book The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York: It’s a southwest-facing window and that means plenty of sunlight, a rarity in this city. The lower part of the view shows the roof tops of the small nineteenth-century houses that line West Seventy-sixth and Seventy-seventh Streets, a view pretty much unchanged since the time our building went up in 1927, and that is very pleasant. In the near distance is an apartment building contemporary with ours which has the merit of featuring an old-fashioned wooden water tower. Fortunately for my wife and me, the modern buildings of Donald Trump, with their ugly fenestration and hostile immensity, figure only in the distance. The glory of our view is the lordly, moody Hudson River, much reduced here in the middle-right. For the twenty-seven years of our marriage this has afforded us sunsets that on some days are spectacular, on others merely beautiful.
June 26, 2010 World Cup 2010 When the Games Start to Matter By Will Frears So far in the World Cup, it’s Donald Rumsfeld 1 Pele 0. The former Defense Secretary’s sneering dismissal of Old Europe seems, in this realm anyway, prophetic, as anciens regimes slink home to the continent in disgrace; while Pele’s famous pronouncement that an African team will win the World Cup by the year 2000 seems unlikely to come true before 2014 at the earliest. It’s been a strange cup so far because there’s only been one good game: Italy-Slovakia, which only really took off in the barnstorming last ten minutes. There have been exciting moments, Landon Donovan scoring against Algeria most clearly. (Though if you want proof of the World Cup’s triumph over the historical anti–soccer American bias, look no further than the mayhem that greeted the desperate injury time winner; it’s Algeria, man, seriously.) There was also South Africa going two nil up against France, Messi against the entire Nigerian defense, and perhaps most memorably of all Patrice Evra against Robert Duverne. But it’s hard to remember a whole game, and there has been nothing so far that compares to either of the semi finals from four years ago; Italy v Germany or France v Brazil. (There is also the France-Brazil from 1986 that is, I think, the single best soccer match I have ever seen.) Read More
June 25, 2010 World Cup 2010 Empire of Sport By David Wallace-Wells The group stage of the 2010 World Cup ends today—the group stage of the first African World Cup, as we’re reminded again and again by the soccer salesmanship masquerading as studio commentary before, during, and after each game. And of the six teams drawn from what is being called the “home continent,” only Ghana has managed to advance. (They’ll play the U.S. on Saturday afternoon.) The bafana bafana of South Africa are the first host nation to get knocked out so early, despite delivering the tournament’s spectacular opening goal. That goal, we were told, ignited the hearts of fans from Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope. And the failure of Algeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and South Africa to advance has been called an “African tragedy.” No one is talking about a “European tragedy,” though six European sides are already heading home. (Tournament favorite Spain are in danger, too: they have to beat enterprising Chile this afternoon to advance.) And no commentators would think to describe the early exits of France and Italy as disappointments for, say, Merkel or Zapatero—or to imagine the pubs of London in a state of mourning following a surprise loss by Germany. No one would believe it if they did, continents being things that are usually divided into, you know, nations—nations often made hostile by proximity and divided by borders typically set by, you know, wars. And soccer being the way Europeans litigate hostilities in the age of the Euro. And yet the air is thick with something in Soccer City, the Johannesburg complex where (imported?) production teams have been preparing for us all those montages of cheetahs, primitivist graphics, and Jungle Book voice-overs we’ve been eating up all tournament. We don’t have a neat African equivalent for the term Orientalism, but how about vuvuzelism?
June 25, 2010 At Work Jennifer Egan By Christopher Cox Jennifer Egan’s new book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, covers a lot of ground, from San Francisco to Kenya and beyond, and a wide span of time, from the seventies punk scene to a near future where even the most intimate conversations (“Nvr met my dad. Dyd b4 I ws brn”) are conducted via text. We caught up with her, appropriately enough, over e-mail. Photograph by Pieter Van Hattem/VistaluxSeveral chapters of the book started out as short stories. When did you first know that they would come together to form a novel? I’m not sure there was a moment when I exactly knew, but the whole writing process seemed to be about thinking I would write just one more piece about this constellation of people. But then my curiosity would hook onto someone else, and I’d find myself following them along a byway to a different place. The critical moment came when I realized that four older stories, which I’d written and published some years before, were also entangled with this new material. I felt the whole thing weaving itself around me at that point, and realized it was time to admit I was writing a book, figure out what kind of book it was, and how the hell to make it work. Read More
June 25, 2010 Ask The Paris Review Dirty Books, Greek Travels, Oily Birds By Lorin Stein Boy Reading, by Thomas Pollack Anshutz.I am eternally that girl who guys want to be friends with, and I am fed up with it. Where can I turn to help me with my predicament? And don’t say Jane Austen. —Jessica, New York City I wasn’t going to say Jane Austen! I find her deeply, deeply depressing. Maybe you feel the same. If you want to read a genteel English novel where the perpetual “friend” gets the upper hand, try The Tortoise and the Hare, by Elizabeth Jenkins. (Jenkins also wrote a biography of Austen, but you can skip that.) You might get a vicarious kick out of Dawn Powell’s 1942 satire of New York media people, A Time to Be Born. Another tale of a friend triumphant. It sounds, though, as if you may be in the market for a seduction manual. I’ve never read one that rang true, sorry to say. Instead it seems to me one should probably read dirty books—starting with something outrageous and perverse, like Bataille’s Story of the Eye—if only because these books, the really dirty ones, give a person courage when she (or he) feels unsexed. They may help you acknowledge your awkward or forbidden feelings toward those guys, even at the risk of rejection. If you’re fed up, as you say, it’s time to act! Read More
June 24, 2010 Softball Team Paris Review Storms Hearst Castle By Christopher Cox After the jump, a recap of last night’s softball game against Esquire. Read More