{"id":5103,"date":"2010-09-24T17:53:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T21:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=5103"},"modified":"2018-12-06T16:20:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T21:20:25","slug":"staff-picks-nathanael-west-pavement-elisa-griswold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/24\/staff-picks-nathanael-west-pavement-elisa-griswold\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Nathanael West, Pavement, Eliza Griswold"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just finished Nathanael West\u2019s Miss Lonelyhearts<\/a><\/em> and am halfway through The Day of the Locust<\/a><\/em> (New Directions not long ago issued them together<\/a> in a single paperback volume). The undercurrent of violence in the two novels, the way in which nearly every act and thought is awash in it, is startling. The characters in Miss Lonelyhearts<\/em> are drowning in Prohibition booze; how else to manage the crushing disappointment and despair of early thirties America? But the illusion of Hollywood hope that masks alienation and desperation in Day of the Locust<\/em> feels like a much longer hangover. \u2014Nicole Rudick<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you fell in love with Stephen Malkmus\u2019s dead eyes in the \u201cMajor Leagues\u201d music video, or appreciate apathy raised to the level of art, or just really like the sound of 1994, then read Chuck Klosterman\u2019s GQ<\/em> profile<\/a> of Pavement from earlier this year. New York Magazine<\/em> also has a sharp\u2014and more recent\u2014analysis of the band\u2019s resurgent appeal<\/a>. \u2014Miranda Popkey<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tenth Parallel<\/a><\/em>, Eliza Griswold\u2019s account of years traveling through regions of Africa and Asia crossed by the latitudinal line that\u2014owing to centuries of historical accidents and decades of misguided Western intervention\u2014marks where Christian and Muslim cultures meet, or rather collide. What\u2019s particularly striking is the restraint of the writing, given the violence\u2014both physical and spiritual\u2014she chronicles in a series of stories. There are clearly no simple answers to the conflict, and Griswold, to her credit, avoids reductive solutions or comforting interpretations. The stories themselves are enough. \u2014Peter Conroy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The GQ<\/em> oral history<\/a> of GoodFellas<\/em> is a reminder that the best pulp culture is invariably produced by insurgent campaigns. It\u2019s also made me wonder whether the enduring power of \u201cThen He Kissed Me\u201d owes more to the Steadicam shot to which Scorsese set it, or vice versa. \u2014David Wallace-Wells<\/strong><\/p>\n

I heard David Bezmozgis read from his forthcoming novel, The Free World<\/em><\/a>, at the FSG Reading Series last Tuesday. And I pocketed a galley that\u2019s been keeping me up past my bedtime. The book isn\u2019t out until April of next year, but in the meantime, you can tide yourself over with \u201cThe Train of Their Departure<\/a>\u201d in The New Yorker.<\/em> \u2014Thessaly La Force<\/strong><\/p>\n

I watched eagerly the first installment<\/a> of \u201cGrand Openings,\u201d a video essay on director David Fincher\u2014and especially his credit sequences\u2014by Matt Zoller Seitz and Aaron Aradillas. Nobody else seems to have figured out how to make use of the possibilities of video criticism beyond the DVD-commentary model, and though the series Seitz has produced for the Museum of the Moving Image’s Moving Image Source<\/em> over the past year or two might not be all masterpieces, he is truly miles ahead of the competition. \u2014D. W.-W.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just finished Nathanael West\u2019s Miss Lonelyhearts and am halfway through The Day of the Locust (New Directions not long ago issued them together in a single paperback volume). The undercurrent of violence in the two novels, the way in which nearly every act and thought is awash in it, is startling. The characters in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaff Picks: Nathanael West, Pavement, Eliza Griswold by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"September 24, 2010 \u2013 I\u2019ve just finished Nathanael West\u2019s Miss Lonelyhearts and am halfway through The Day of the Locust (New Directions not long ago issued them together in a\" \/>\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\/2010\/09\/24\/staff-picks-nathanael-west-pavement-elisa-griswold\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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