Books
Literary critic
James Wood left a comment at
New York's
Vulture blog, objecting to its
prior characterization of his new book
How Fiction Works. It is not, he says, a "prescriptive guide to writing one kind of book," nor is there is any such thing as "the high realist novel," and even if there were, he would not be its
Zhdanovite champion. He esteems "stylistic flourishes," for one — just don't go thinking you can write a pretty little book about nothing. In its defense, Vulture argues that nowhere does Wood actually
deny being the leader of a new lit school; the original post referred to Leon Neyfakh's
Observer profile of exultant, MFA-carrying Woodies, which quoted the master as saying that his favorite remarks are from writers who claim his essays helped them escape this or that brier patch in their own work. Not sure that makes him a didactic commissar so much as just good. Full comment after the jump:
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Gawker
If Hulk Hogan can't make it work with his lookalike, equally bleached-blond wife, what hope is there for the rest of us? And what about Matthew Broderick and those rumors of his cheating on American's princess, Sarah Jessica Parker? And the impending divorce of the Yankee's A-Rod and his wife, after the Madonna/stripper liaisons? Summer is the season of celebrity divorces, and our Intern Morgan Miller put together a chart of the juiciest scandals, from Lucy and Desi on up. Transsexual prostitutes, drug paranoia, and herpes—as Ivana Trump once said, "Don't get mad, get everything."
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