September 15, 2010 The Culture Diaries A Week in Culture: Nelly Kaprielian, Critic By Nelly Kaprielian DAY ONE 10:00 A.M. How can you tell when a novel is great? When, even on a second reading, you keep discovering new things, you keep being amazed, impressed, amused, when the text keeps making you think about the world and your own life. That’s how it is with Michel Houellebecq’s new novel, La Carte et le Territoire. I just finished rereading it this morning in preparation for my interview with him tonight. The book comes out September 8 and already—ever since August 20—the press has been full of raves. Every Houellebecq novel is an event. The only real phenomenon in French letters, and the only French author known abroad, Houellebecq has certainly paid a price: to be idolized like a rock star, yes, but also hated, scorned, dragged through the mud by his idolators. Since The Elementary Particles came out in 1998, Les Inrockuptibles has stood by Houellebecq, defending him against the unfounded attacks that greeted one of his best books, The Possibility of an Island, in 2005. Out of loyalty, Houellebecq has granted us the first in-depth interview about the book, and the only long interview in a serious weekly. Needless to say, such loyalty is rare in the literary world. Ironically, thanks to the new book, Houellebecq finds himself lionized yet again by the press. Whenever a book of his appears, the media’s reaction tells you as much about them as about the book itself. 11:00 A.M. It hasn’t got any sex in it, no swingers’ clubs, no Thai whores. The novel, which is less angry and less polemical than his previous work, will be read on its own terms, simply as a great book: a total novel, a metaphysical labyrinth of dizzying complexity, a vision of the world that we once knew and have lost to globalization. No, it isn’t exactly funny. And yet Houellebecq manages to combine his despair with an irony that draws you helplessly in. It strikes me that this is why I do my job—why all critics do—for the intense feeling, for the adrenaline rush, of discovering a work of genius. If it wasn’t eleven in the morning, I’d pour myself a shot of vodka. 12:00 P.M.. At the office, in Bastille. I have other people’s reviews to edit, headlines to write (trying to be witty, to think up puns … a nightmare), etc. But first I can’t resist going straight to the editor of the TV section and begging him—on bended knees, with clasped and trembling hands—to let me borrow season three of Mad Men. That’s one advantage of working for a culture journal. You can get all 13 episodes at once, and watch five in one night. Ecstasy. 5:40 P.M. Houellebecq’s novel features a misanthropic alcoholic named Michel Houellebecq, who says at one point: “You know, it’s the journalists who’ve given me the reputation of a drunk: what’s odd is that none of them ever realized that, if I drink a lot in their presence, it’s only so I can stand them.” I pick up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. 6:07 P.M. Houellebecq is … Houellebecquian. The Ritz? The Meurice? The Plaza? No. While in Paris he stays at a completely crummy chain hotel—in the 13th Arrondissement, no less, the same neighborhood where his main character, the artist Jed Martin, lives. The room is depressing enough to make you want to jump out the window. Pajamas balled up on the unmade bed, electric toothbrush recharging on the table. The usual slow delivery, the usual long silence before every sentence, the usual cigarette in the corner of his mouth. And yet he has changed: he’s thinner, his face is more deeply lined, his eyes seem washed out, he seems exhausted. It worries me. “Thank you for the champagne, but I already picked up a bottle. We’ll drink them both.” And so we do. 10:30 P.M. Michel orders a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape at the Moroccan restaurant where he has taken me to dinner. 11:35 P.M. He has fallen fast asleep on the table. What to do? The kind waitress hails a taxi, I shake Michel by the shoulders to wake him up, help him to his feet and put him in the car. “Where are we?” he asks, still half asleep. In the taxi he finally recognizes the 13th Arrondissement and seems reassured. I tell him that the most worrying thing, for me, is that I seem able to hold my liquor better than … Michel Houellebecq himself. “Yes, but you have practice, what with all those literary cocktail parties they make you attend.” All is well: he has got back his sense of humor. 11:55 P.M. In front of his hotel we smoke a few more cigarettes while the taxi waits to take me home. “Alcohol, you know, is a thing of my youth. I don’t drink the way I used to. I’m old now, and I don’t think I have much longer to go. La Carte et le Territoire may be my last book … “ Touching, moving, sincere, brilliant, funny, utterly down-to-earth … An interview with Michel Houellebecq is not like an interview with anybody else. No doubt about it, I love the guy. Read More
September 15, 2010 Arts & Culture Quelle Coincidence!: TPR Salutes Les Inrockuptibles By Lorin Stein As Paris cultural institutions go, they’re babies—but for the last two decades Les Inrockuptibles has been the great arbiter of Parisian pop cult. (Think Spin in its heyday, plus The Village Voice ditto, plus a music label and a funny accent.) Today the editors of Les Inrocks are relaunching the magazine; we wish them bon courage. They have our sympathy, heaven knows—and our highest hopes. To mark the occasion, our culture diary will feature editor Nelly Kaprielian, who brings us an eyewitness report on this year’s rentrée littéraire.
September 14, 2010 On Sports An Honor to Watch By Louisa Thomas Sunday mornings can be such a bummer, time for reflection and for regret. So it was the morning after Roger Federer’s loss to Novak Djokovic in the men’s semifinal. New York was chilly and soaking—weather for brooding, not for tennis. Who was in the mood for tennis, anyway? There would be no Federer-Nadal final. The match so much desired, so long expected, would not happen. Djokovic had outplayed Federer. And it was thrilling. I couldn’t help it, at times I was thrilled. Facing two match points in the fifth set, Djokovic saved the first with a gutsy swinging volley. He saved the second with a forehand walloped into the corner—an astonishing shot. Reader, I gasped with joy. I didn’t mean to cheer for Djokovic, a man who smashes his racket against his head to pump himself up. I didn’t want to cheer against Federer. Federer is the player I enjoy watching more than any other, the most beautiful player of the most beautiful game. After the match, I felt empty and a little guilty. On Sunday, I felt even worse. (That the women’s final was so lame didn’t help—hadn’t I, on some level, asked for Vera Zvonareva’s mental collapse? Forgive! And congrats to Kim Clijsters!) On Monday, though, things looked up. The sun was out and Nadal still playing. Rafa, always reason for cheer! Against Djokovic, Nadal easily won the first set. But during the second, Djokovic came to life, zooming around the court, skinny limbs flying. He went for the lines and hit the corners. Djokovic is not a man who immediately inspires. His haircut is bad, his temper idiotic, his style slightly spasmodic. But he’s daring and quick, gentle at net and fierce in the backcourt, and his defensive play is unreal. When he broke Nadal’s serve twice in the second set, I felt, again, spontaneous pleasure. It would have been impossible to suppress it. Not just impossible: I think it would have been wrong to try. But he couldn’t keep it up, and Nadal … Nadal is something else. Even when he stumbles, as he did a few times last night. He sprinted to every ungettable shot and moved the ball in unbelievable ways, knifing his volleys and spinning those forehands. Until the last set, when Djokovic simply faded, the Serb gave Nadal a good match. But I wanted Nadal to beat him. I wanted to see him yank Djokovic like a yoyo with his magnificent groundstrokes; I wanted to see him rip up the ball. I wanted him to win so badly that I felt slightly sick. And Nadal did. When he won the 2010 U.S. Open, he became the seventh man to win the career grand slam. He’s 24 years old. He is as great as can be imagined. Greater, maybe. It’s tempting to call tennis an art, and a lot of people do. It’s graceful and intuitive, and one responds to it as one responds to something beautiful, with the desire to describe it and remember it, and to applaud those who made it. But its value is not symbolic, though it lends itself to metaphor. It works in other ways. A single shot is so fast, the physics so complex, that it’s hard to picture, even when you’re watching it live. It can’t be aestheticized or really captured. Instead it captures you, the watcher, in wonder. At least, it captures me. There’s something incredible about all those straight lines and arcs and angles, the speed and the spins, the strength, and the drama of two people, alone, facing each other. I don’t know what it all adds up to, exactly, or why I care so much. It should be silly, a game with a bouncy, fuzzy yellow ball. But it isn’t. It’s awesome, and sometimes it’s an honor to watch. It was an honor to watch Nadal last night.
September 14, 2010 Events Lit Crawl: Sneak Peek of Issue 194 By The Paris Review This Saturday, The Paris Review unveiled its fall issue at Fontana’s. Photographs by Wesley Chen.
September 13, 2010 A Letter from the Editor GET READY By Lorin Stein Two days to go before we officially launch the fall issue—and with it, the redesigned Paris Review. We are told that copies have already arrived at a bookstore near us. Maybe also at one near you. For the curious, the contents include: interviews with Michel Houellebecq and Norman Rush fiction by Lydia Davis, Sam Lipsyte, and newcomer April Ayers Lawson essays by J. D. Daniels and John Jeremiah Sullivan poems by Carol Muske-Dukes, Dorothea Lasky, Frederick Seidel, John Tranter, Mark Ford, Daniel Bosch, Charles Harper Webb, and the late, great Giacomo Leopardi artworks by Tauba Auerbach and Colter Jacobsen We’ll be telling you more about these people, and showing you some of their work, over the next few weeks. But … it’s never too soon to subscribe!
September 13, 2010 Books Allegra Goodman’s Five Favorite Cookbooks By Allegra Goodman Allegra Goodman’s latest novel is the Cookbook Collector, a story about two radically different sisters, Emily and Jessamyn Bach, both living in California during the dot-com boom at the turn of the century. Jessamyn, a graduate student studying philosophy, works for an antique book store in Berkeley, owned by a retired Microsoft millionaire named George. One day, George discovers a cookbook collection of unparalleled quality, and with the aide of Jessamyn, attempts to acquire it for himself. Goodman’s novel is littered with references to heirloom cookbooks, some I had heard of (The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook), some I hadn’t, but wished I could read. Craving more, I asked Goodman to provide The Daily with a modest list of her favorite five. —Thessaly La Force 1. Ruth Graves Wakefield, Toll House: Tried and True Recipes. This cookbook from the 1930s contains a primer for brides with instructions on how to brew coffee, bake a potato, roast a chicken and bake an apple pie. Even I—scarcely a cook at all—can bake Johnnycake (Corn Bread). This book is truly useful. 2. At the other end of the spectrum—Barbara Tropp’s China Moon Cookbook is my fantasy cookbook, full of recipes I love to read. I bought this book in graduate school and I’ve never tried to a single recipe. They look delicious. I love Chinese food. But you see, you have to start by making your own Ten-Spice and Cayenne Pepper Oil. You have to roll out and cut your own soba noodles. Yikes. China Moon inspired my novel The Cookbook Collector with its motif of cookbook collectors who do not cook. 3. Jennie Grossinger’s The Art of Jewish Cooking is a down to earth and sensible book. My mother gave it to me when I got married, and her inscription reads: “This book contains some of my favorite recipes—Enjoy, enjoy—Mommy P.S. Try Chinese meatballs on p. 15.” 4. Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly: The Complete Meat Cookbook a superb guide to roasts and chops for carnivores living in an all too vegetarian world. I mean really—who can survive on dandelions and ruffled kale? What, as my eight year old daughter says, is the “main chorus”? 5. My mother, Madeleine Goodman, was a superb and supremely unfussy cook. She liked her recipes simple, and her flavors clear and clean. I’ve come to see the difference between occasional cooks who like projects, and serious cooks who are there for you every night with a good healthy dinner. (How I miss her!) Well, my mother adored The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken. I see that this one is just now back in print, and I need to buy myself a copy, and one for my sister too. It’s very funny and also very good. Try the recipe for three bean salad. Delicious and perfectly balanced. Not too tart, like the bean salads you find at the salad bar.