{"id":114529,"date":"2017-08-25T13:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=114529"},"modified":"2017-08-25T13:34:12","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T17:34:12","slug":"staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Constipation, Hubris, Sincerity"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Arista Alanis,\u00a0\u201c \u2026 on down the road<\/em>\u201d (detail), oil on canvas, 30″ x 24″. From the cover of Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I first encountered Arthur Schnitzler\u2019s work as an undergraduate, when I read\u00a0Traumnovelle<\/em>\u00a0(which was adapted by Stanley Kubrick in\u00a0Eyes Wide Shut<\/em>). NYRB Classics has just come out with a recently unearthed Schnitzler novella,\u00a0L<\/em>ate Fame<\/em><\/a>, and I was excited to relive my college days with some fin de si\u00e8cle\u00a0Viennese fiction. Picking up this story in the spirit of nostalgia is apropos: the narrative follows an aging man, Saxberger, who is suddenly swept up into a group of young artists. They\u2019ve discovered a book of poetry that Saxberger published thirty years earlier, have decided he is a genius, and want to hold a reading in his honor. What ensues is Saxberger\u2019s comedic reckoning with a life he could have had: attention from a glamorous woman,\u00a0exuberant\u00a0toasts, and an ardent career in art (rather than as a civil servant). The cast of characters is vibrant with types\u2014the\u00a0tragedienne, the brooding critic, the romantic Wordsworthian\u2014all rendered each with their own shade of irony. As he spends more time with this cohort, he comes to realize that he is not the person they want him to be:\u00a0\u201cHis efforts were in vain. Laughable was what they had been. It was over. At heart it was simple and not even very sad\u2014no sadder than age itself, hardly sadder than the thirty years in which no verse had ever\u00a0occurred to him.\u201d\u00a0The levity of Schnitzler\u2019s tone mitigates any deeply poignant feeling and saves the story from\u00a0slipping into the realm of the melancholic, where it would perhaps be less appealing. The story considers questions of artistry and recognition (if a book of\u00a0poems is published but nobody reads it, does it really exist?), but it is best in the subtle fun it pokes at its characters and their delusions of grandeur. \u2014Lauren Kane<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first I ever heard of Ross Gay was from another poet, who, at a reading, mentioned anecdotally that he had come across Gay at a caf\u00e9 in Harlem. When asked what he was up to, Gay responded, \u201cWriting down things that delight me.\u201d Two seasons later, with Gay\u2019s most recent book in my hands, I see how wonderful and serious an occupation this is for Gay. This collection is called Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude<\/em><\/a>\u2014and it is. Almost no one has the faith he seems to have in poetry\u2019s ability to tap grace from the happenings of his life. (Don\u2019t mistake his exuberance\u00a0solely for bliss: my guess is that as a black man in America, Gay cannot afford naivety.) He looks to the act of writing as real alchemy, and death, disappointment, and inequity become honey in his hand. Gay devotes a poem to getting shit on by a bird, finds subterranean rhythm in \u201cthe passenger seat of this teal Mitsubishi,\u201d and, in \u201cAn Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt,\u201d does magic with the most quotidian tasks: \u201csometimes \/ the buttons \/ will be on the other \/ side and \/ I am a woman \/ that morning.\u201d \u2014Julia Berick\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other morning, I woke up earlier than usual to read Mary Jo Bang\u2019s newest collection of poetry,\u00a0A Doll for Throwing<\/em><\/a>, and was in awe from start to finish. The book comprises fifty-five prose poems, most no more than a paragraph in length, and yet the philosophy guiding each along is so staggering\u2014so\u00a0sweeping<\/em>\u2014that I\u2019ve found myself returning to it again and again. The collection draws on Bang\u2019s studies of the Bauhaus movement in Berlin, which sought to unite art and design. Taking the artist Alma Siedhoff-Buscher\u2019s doll,\u00a0Wurfpuppe<\/em>, as inspiration for the book\u2019s title, and the life of the photographer Lucia Moholy as fodder for the poems inside, Bang delves into early twentieth-century German history.\u00a0She\u00a0braids in more ubiquitous anxieties, too\u2014she writes of the concerns of women, of borders and of terror (\u201cBuy a ticket, catch a train, cross a border \u2026 The sway of terror like a dance band, ratcheting up the drum beat\u201d)\u2014and pauses to muse on the beauty of the unnoticed: cicadas on pine trees and mothers in crimson lipstick and pearl buttons. My favorite lines are the simplest ones, like these, from \u201cDwelling in Our Time\u201d: \u201cDid you know what I meant when I said, Do you want someone to love you, or just this?\u201d \u2014Caitlin Youngquist<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From Goodbye Christopher Robin<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Two minutes into the screening of Goodbye Christopher Robin<\/em><\/a>, Simon Curtis\u2019s new film about A. A. Milne and the creation of Winnie the Pooh,\u00a0Sadie whispered, \u201cThat kid is ungodly<\/em> cute.\u201d It was true. The child actor who plays Christopher Robin has an angelic smile and the resting expression of a golden retriever puppy: hopeful, curious, undaunted by the cruelty of his remote and exploitative parents. \u201cIt was almost implausible how cute he was,\u201d Sadie complained afterward. \u201cI get it that A. A. Milne was shell-shocked and emotionally constipated and English, but come on, how could anyone be mean to a kid as adorable as that?\u201d Apparently Disney wouldn\u2019t let the film quote any of the Pooh books. I wouldn\u2019t have, either; when the lights went up, people were still dabbing their eyes. I think it\u2019s fair to say no one was in the mood to revisit When We Were Very Young<\/em>. \u2014Lorin Stein<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alex Gilvarry\u2019s novel Eastman Was Here<\/em><\/a> is a lampoonish send-up of the fragile male ego starring Alan Eastman, a famous writer and Norman Mailer caricature. It\u2019s 1970s New York and Eastman, who fears he is in the twilight of his career, needs a break: his wife has just left him, his young boys are growing distant, his longtime mistress recently married his editor, and he can\u2019t seem to write anything worth a damn. Because he has no other options, he accepts an offer to report on the closing days of the Vietnam War, and he\u2019s convinced himself that he\u2019s duty bound to do it, that he\u2019s the only person who can tell the war\u2019s story well, honestly, and true\u2014and all those other grandiose delusions. Eastman Was Here<\/em> is good because Gilvarry understands hubris: \u201cLove me!\u201d Eastman desperately telegraphs as he self-destructs. His self-obsession, the mental backflips he must perform to ensure that he is always the protagonist of the bigger narrative, as he sees it, is as impressive as it is depressing. This may be one of the sadder books you read this summer, but it may also be the funniest. \u2014Jeffery Gleaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

My recommendation this week is a podcast that makes recommendations\u2014in particular, of books that don\u2019t have the readership the hosts believe they deserve.\u00a0Backlisted\u00a0<\/i>is helmed by John Mitchinson, a publisher at Unbound, and Andy Miller, author of\u00a0The Year of Reading Dangerously<\/i>. The two begin each biweekly show discussing what they\u2019ve been reading lately, a segment worthy of its own podcast for the varied recommendations the two provide, from obscure histories like Robert Colls\u2019s\u00a0Identity of England<\/i>\u00a0to voluminous classics like Vasily Grossman\u2019s\u00a0Life and Fate<\/i>. The meat of the program, however, is when Miller and Mitchinson discuss that episode\u2019s featured book with a guest. The conversations are entertaining and insightful, and the subjects are wide-ranging, including books by little-known authors and lesser-known books from literary titans, such as James Baldwin, whose underappreciated novel\u00a0Tell Me How Long the Train\u2019s Been Gone\u00a0<\/i>headlined\u00a0<\/i>a recent episode. One of the show\u2019s strengths is its guests: almost always someone with a passion for the work being discussed, such that each conversation is charged with the excitement with which one discusses a beloved book. My favorite guest so far has been the novelist Alex Preston, who came on to discuss Charles Sprawson\u2019s\u00a0Haunts of the Black Masseur<\/i>\u00a0(of which, by the way, only two copies remain at the Strand, after my purchase). Preston reminded me of one of the reasons I love being a reader: the sense that the next book I pick up could change my life. Or maybe it\u2019s the next book I hear about on\u00a0Backlisted<\/i>. \u2014Joel Pinckney<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Lil B, the Bay Area rapper\/outsider artist\/living meme\/prophet, has given me endless joy over the past seven or so years. His output is astounding (he released more than a dozen free mixtapes in 2012 alone), and he\u2019s a cult icon who has feuded with (and cursed) NBA stars, created his own dance craze, and influenced just about every rapper working today.\u00a0But how does one approach the oeuvre of an incredibly prolific musician? Quite simply: one piece at a time. Of his some two thousand\u00a0songs, I\u2019ll single out\u00a0\u201cWhoopie<\/a>,\u201d a bouncy, summery song from B\u2019s 2010 mixtape\u00a0Evil Red Flame<\/em><\/a>. Behind all of Lil B\u2019s music is a deep knowledge of hip-hop history, and \u201cWhoopie\u201d exemplifies this: a glorious riff on the Harlem rapper Cam\u2019ron\u2019s signature meter and rhyme patterns, the track sees Lil B operating at the top of his game as hip-hop\u2019s foremost Dadaist. You see, women love Lil B in the same way they love \u201cmorning breakfast\u201d: \u201cI\u2019m like the eggs \/ you\u2019re like the plate \/ you hold me up \/ while I sit in cheese.\u201d Another highlight: \u201cI got money in the safe \u2019cause I\u2019m paranoid \/ two guns in my waist \u2019cause I will destroy \/ no mask on my face \u2019cause I\u2019m a idiot.\u201d Yet for all the silliness here\u2014the deconstruction of rap stereotypes and outlandish brags\u2014what\u2019s kept Lil B afloat for so long is his remarkable sincerity. He reminds us to let go of everything\u2014notions about how rap should sound, about rhyme schemes, gender performance, even the meanings behind words themselves\u2014and simply exist.\u00a0\u201cThe main thing I\u2019m trying to press here with everybody is that I love you,\u201d he said at\u00a0a sold-out lecture at MIT in 2014. \u201cSomebody that doesn\u2019t know you, loves you.\u201d \u2014Brian Ransom<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lil B loves you.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I first encountered Arthur Schnitzler\u2019s work as an undergraduate, when I read\u00a0Traumnovelle\u00a0(which was adapted by Stanley Kubrick in\u00a0Eyes Wide Shut). NYRB Classics has just come out with a recently unearthed Schnitzler novella,\u00a0Late Fame, and I was excited to relive my college days with some fin de si\u00e8cle\u00a0Viennese fiction. Picking up this story in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[9450,30305,30296,30301,30293,28986,1776,6397,30290,2189,30307,30297,30298,30304,24465,10828,30308,6269,79,7711,427,915,411,881,30291,30309,30303,21339,13011,18648,7481,46,1437,23467,100,26526,165,5692,30294,30306,30299,1161,30292,21868,5873,30300,9451,36,30302],"class_list":["post-114529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-a-a-milne","tag-alex-gilvarry","tag-alex-preston","tag-alma-siedhoff-buscher","tag-andy-miller","tag-arthur-schnitzler","tag-bauhaus","tag-berlin","tag-blacklisted","tag-borders","tag-camron","tag-charles-sprawson","tag-christopher-robin","tag-cicadas","tag-dada","tag-dolls","tag-evil-red-flame","tag-eyes-wide-shut","tag-film","tag-harlem","tag-hip-hop","tag-hubris","tag-humor","tag-james-baldwin","tag-john-mitchinson","tag-lil-b","tag-lucia-moholy","tag-mary-jo-bang","tag-mit","tag-mixtapes","tag-mothers","tag-music","tag-norman-mailer","tag-nyrb-classics","tag-photography","tag-podcast","tag-poetry","tag-rap","tag-robert-colls","tag-ross-gay","tag-simon-curtis","tag-stanley-kubrick","tag-unbound","tag-vasily-grossman","tag-vietnam-war","tag-vinna","tag-winnie-the-pooh","tag-women","tag-wurfpuppe"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaff Picks: Arthur Schnitzler, Mary Jo Bang, and Winnie the Pooh<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 is reading this week.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Staff Picks: Constipation, Hubris, Sincerity by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 25, 2017 \u2013   I first encountered Arthur Schnitzler\u2019s work as an undergraduate, when I read\u00a0Traumnovelle\u00a0(which was adapted by Stanley Kubrick in\u00a0Eyes Wide\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-25T17:00:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-08-25T17:34:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/aristaalanis-e1503672219855.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"673\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"386\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"Staff Picks: Constipation, Hubris, Sincerity\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-08-25T17:00:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-25T17:34:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/\"},\"wordCount\":1725,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/25\/staff-picks-constipation-hubris-sincerity\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/aristaalanis-e1503672219855.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"A.A. 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