End Notes for Thursday, 15 September 2011

WELCOME TO END NOTES, Advance Copy's weekly trawl for all the book and publishing news that's fit to print, with some music thrown in for good measure. Email me at: books@currentintelligence.net.

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In-House: Our H-Net review of the week (they appear Mondays) is Charles Maisels' The Archaeology of Politics and Power: Where, When, and Why the First States Formed, reviewed by Nayanjot Lahiri. Our Reviews page can be found here. Also, my take on Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl.

9/11: Last week, as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approached, I pointed to The Guardian's top twenty books about 9/11. This week, Laura Miller at Salon makes an argument as to why we have yet to see a truly great 9/11 novel.

Afghanistan: Afghanistan is a notoriously difficult nation to conquer, and let's face it, whatever the public rhetoric about the NATO mission in Afghanistan, this is a war of conquest. It's not going so well, nor did the Soviet attempt in the 80s. Even Alexander the Great had his difficulties conquering Bactriana, as it was then called. Jonah Blank, in reviewing Peter Tomsen's Wars of Afghanistan, comes to a similar conclusion. Meanwhile, Bing West reviews two new documentaries on the war in Afghanistan to figure out why aggressive counter-insurgency plans come to little more than frustration. I love the title of his piece: "Groundhog War."

A Writer, Not a Critic: Alfred Kazin is/was (he's been dead for thirteen years) one of the most luminous of American public intellectuals, author of more than a dozen books and about one bazillion articles, reviews, and other ephemera. Now his journals have been published. William Deresiewicz explores.

Ned Kelley: A few weeks ago I noted that I had never been able to get through Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning The True History of the Kelly Gang. That led to several emails from readers (thanks, Mom!) arguing that I really should persevere, it's an amazing book and great story. So I took your advice, and you're right, it was a fantastic read in the end. Thanks.

Socrates: Just last night, in a Continuing Education course, I was making the argument to my students that Socrates was "kinda a big deal," the Kanye West of his time. They were sceptical, but as I explained the great man's thoughts on truth, knowledge, and wisdom, they began to see the light. I also noted that part of our problem with Socrates is that he was illiterate and therefore all we know of him comes from his students, primarily Plato. Now the Loeb Library has published new texts concerning Socrates by Xenophon and Arstophanes, neither of whom, strictly speaking, were philosophers. Adam Kirsch takes a look.

Reviews: This week, we went to see Woody Allen's fantastic new film, Midnight in Paris. Allen is clearly going through a late-career renaissance, as his films seem to be getting better and better with each outing. One of the characters in the film, Paul Bates, is a pedantic, self-obssessed know-it-all, an expert on Rodin, Matisse, French expressionism, French wine, French history, Versailles, Picasso, and various other things. Unfortunately, the likes of Bates are too often commissioned to write book reviews by august publications. This leads to a review from which it becomes very clear that the reviewer has barely read the book, but instead takes the opportunity to show off his knowledge about the topic. So, in the end, we have no clue about the book, but boy, oh boy, we sure are impressed with the erudition of the reviewer.

The Guardian Book Swap: The Guardian is setting books free into the wilds of London, where you can find them and give them a good home.

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MUSIC

Just Say No: I've always loved the Beatles. Now I have even more reason to do so: they refused to play to segregated audiences in the US in 1965.

The Charlatans: The Charlatans have long been one of my favourite bands, if not my favourite band. They emerged from the Madchester scene in the late 80s, the third of the great Manchester bands of the day, along with the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays. But the Roses burned themselves out with acrimony and the Mondays dissolved into a mess of drugs. The Charlies kept on truckin' throughout the 90s, 00s, and now into the 10s. And they consistently make excellent music. They're on Twitter, but more importantly is frontman Tim Burgess. Burgess interacts with his fans all day everyday; on Monday night this week, he and his fans around the world gathered on Twitter to listen to the Charlatans' classic first album, Some Friendly. He offered his memories of making the music and we offered our memories of listening to the music. It was, I have to say, one of the coolest things ever, to be sitting on my couch with a beer in hand, listening to Some Friendly with people all over the globe and the man who made the music. Cheers, Tim.

Fall Music Preview: NPR offers us its fall music preview.

Amy Winehouse: NPR also gives us a listen to Ms. Winehouse's final performance, a duet with Tony Bennett. You can also hear the entirety of Bennett's new album, Duets II.

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VIDEO

And finally...: The customary video. We're going all Charlatans this week in honour of Tim Burgess' generosity. First, the Charlies' first single, "Indian Rope." Then two classic cuts off Some Friendly, "Then" and my favourite, "Sproston Green."

The Anti-Freedom, or Why I Love Owl

Part of the problem I had with Jonathan Franzen's 2010 novel, Freedom, was how he depicted his midwestern characters, the Berglund family.  Despite being one himself by birth, Franzen mocks them to the point that we're never able to take the Berglunds' travails seriously. It's not really Franzen's fault if he's been assimilated into liberal North American pretentiaratti culture: we, the cultured urbanites of the coasts are inherently better, only we understand the world, we are the beautiful, the cultured, the very epitome of civilisation. And those people in the middle, except for maybe in Chicago (quite frankly, we don't know, we don't do Chicago), well, they're simple, blinded by Jesus; they just don't get it.

It reminds me of a Corn Flakes ad campaign in the early 90s. In it a trucker, presented with a bowl of cereal, says he isn't interested. The cereal looks plain, boring, kind of like the Prairies. Then he tries a spoonful. He changes his tune; they're delicious, unadorned, straight-forward, just like the people on the Prairies. Surprise: they're Corn Flakes!

It was with this in mind that I picked up Chuck Klosterman's novel, Downtown Owl. I'm still not sure what possessed me to do so, especially after reading the dust jacket

Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there. Disco is over, but punk never happened. They don't have cable. They don't really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls.

And then there's the dustjacket photo of Klosterman. He looks like your typical east coast bearded liberal. And he writes for New York-based magazines.  It must have been the fact that he's the author of a book called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs that got me interested. 

Either way, I'm happy my adventurous side won out. Downtown Owl is a fantastic novel. It actually has very little to do with the dust jacket, which appears to be a case of overzealousness by Klosterman's publisher to appeal to the liberal elite pretentiaratti. 

Owl is most certainly there, somewhere in the North Dakota plain. It's not much, to be true, but it is something. The novel is set in 1983-84. Punk never happened in Owl (it barely happened in most major inland North American cities).  And cable? As the recent hullaballoo about MTV's 30th anniversary shows, cable was a pretty new thing in the early '80s.  The people of Owl do get pop culture. One character, the high school football coach, is obsessed with George Orwell and his novel 1984, for obvious reasons -- the titular year is about to dawn. Only one man, a semi-legendary outlaw by the name of Gordon Kahl, hates the government (though the men of Owl don't support him).  Only one man, the football coach, knocks up teenagers. Both are secondary characters.

The novel is a prescient, touching, and profound examination of life in a small town in North Dakota in the early 80s.  Rather than a town populated by simpletons, Klosterman's characters are realistic, profound and believable. Chuck Klosterman is no Jonathan Franzen. And Downtown Owl is no Freedom.

End Notes for Thursday, 8 September 2011

WELCOME TO END NOTES, Advance Copy's weekly trawl for all the book and publishing news that's fit to print, with some music thrown in for good measure. Email me at: books@currentintelligence.net.

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In-House: Our H-Net review of the week (they appear Mondays) is Neil F. Gregory, et al.'s New Industries from New Places: The Emergence of the Hardware and Software Industries in China and India, reviewed by Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen. Our Reviews page can be found here.

Remembering 9/11: The tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, is this Sunday. I remember vividly watching news updates stream across the screens in Montreal's metro that morning, staring at disbelief at what I was reading; I then watched the second tower come down on the TV in a café downtown. We are now fully into the commemoration process; as an historian of memory and commemoration, I'm blown away by the speed of memorialisation here. Anyway, The Guardian offers the twenty best books about 9/11. One of my favourites, Don DeLillo's Falling Man, made the list; my other favourite, Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers, is missing. The Guardian also has an interesting series of short stories from authors all over the world looking at notions of change and stasis over the past decade.

9/11 Redux: 9/11 was a bit of a boon to the publishing industry, in the decade since, there have been any number of books on Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the Bush Administration, jihad, the war on terror, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Economist looks at four recent additions to this library: Fawaz Gerges's The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda; Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, by Robin Wright; Sherard Cowper-Coles's Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign; and The 9/11 Wars, by Jason Burke.

Redacting the CIA: The CIA is takng some heat of late for censoring books by former agents concerning the War on Terror. First came redactions from Glenn Carle's The Interogator, which was published with blacked out pages to show where the Agency had demanded cuts. Now comes Ali Soufan's memoir, from which the CIA has also demanded redactions, including information in the public domain already. Brilliant.

Coco the Traitor: Rare are the times that I've turned off or walked out of movies because they're so painfully bad or dull. It happened a few weeks ago with Mike Leigh's incredibly smug and dull Another Year. The time before that was Coco Before Chanel, despite the starring role of my long-time crush, Audrey Tautou. I bring up Coco Chanel because an explosive new book by Hal Vaughan, Sleeping With the Enemy, claims that Chanel was a collaborator with the Nazi régime in France during the Second World War. Judith Warner reviews. Meanwhile, German crime writer Ferdinand von Schirach has a new book, Der Fall Collini, (it does not appear to have been translated into English yet) with a character based on his grandfather, Baldur, the leader of the Hitler Youth.

The King of the Jews: Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski was the autocratic ruler of the Lodz Ghetto; Steve Sem-Sandberg examines him in his new novel, The Emperor of Lies. Daphne Merkin reviews.

Fiction: As even the most casual reader of Advance Copy will know, I am a big fan of fiction, especially as a device for historical study. Turns out fiction also makes us more emphathetic.

Man Booker Prize: The Man Booker Prize shortlist was announced on Tuesday. Some surprises, at least for me, in that Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side was left off, amongst others. Julian Barnes, who has been the bridesmaid three times, but never the bride, made the shortlist, as did Carol Birch, who was longlisted in 2003. The shortlist is comprised of four Brits and two Canadians. Feels like Old Home Week in the British Empire, doesn't it? As usual, there is a lot of chirping about what the judges got wrong, but the Chair of Judges, ex-MI5 director Dame Stella Rimmington, has told critics to take or leave the shortlist. Oddsmakers have installed Barnes's The Sense of an Ending as the early favourite.

Giller Prize: Meanwhile, back in Canada, the Giller Prize longlist has been announced, featuring the two Canucks on the Booker shortlist: Patrick DeWitt and Esi Edugyan, as well as Canadian fiction heavyweights such as Michael Ondaatje, Dany Laferrière, Lynn Coady, and Guy Vanderhaeghe

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MUSIC

9/11: NPR is posting interviews with composers who have written works about 9/11. Monday was Steve Reich; Tuesday was Michael Gordon; and Wednesday was John Corigliano. Trinity Church, which stands across the street from where the World Trade Center once stood, was a site of refuge during the chaos after the terrorist attacks. Trinity also has a long history of music in Manhattan and to commemorate 9/11 is offering up a week of choral music, mostly by Bach. I wish I were in NYC just for this.

Salvatore Licitra, RIP: Licitra, the Italian tenor pegged by some to be the heir to Pavarotti, has died at the age of 43 after suffering severe head and chest injuries in a scooter accident in Italy.

The Mercury Prize: Polly Jean Harvey has won her second Mercury Prize. In 2001, she won for her masterful album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Yesterday, she won for her devastatingly brilliant album, Let England Shake. Rare is an artist so clearly deserving of the win. Unlike most years, when the announcement of the winner is met with disbelief in some quarters (think of Speech Debelle's win in 2009), Harvey's win has been well-received, with Laura Barton even going so far as to argue that she is a cultural treasure in The Guardian.

Oh For the Love of God...: Apparently Beyoncé is being accused of wearing a prosthetic pregnant belly at the MTV VMAs. Seriously. 

Superfuzz/Bigmuff: Along with the tenth anniversary of 9/11, September is the twentieth anniversary of when grunge broke. It was in September 1991 that Nirvana and Pearl Jam took the music world by storm, launching a new fashion trend of flannel shirts and baggy jeans (well, for those of us who grew up on the Northwest coast of North America, this was OUR uniform, dammit), and forever changing music. Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm is having none of this, however. His band were the great underdogs of the Seattle music scene, never reaching the stratosphere, but commanding everyone's respect from their first album, the titular Superfuzz/Bigmuff in 1988. 

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VIDEO

And finally...: The requisite video to send you on your way towards the weekend. First, PJ Harvey's "The Words that Maketh Murder," from Let England Shake. Then, Mudhoney's classic 1988 track, "Touch Me I'm Sick." And, to end it off, Salvatore Licitra performing "O Sole Mio" in Tokyo, 2005. RIP.

End Notes for Thursday, 1 September 2011

WELCOME TO END NOTES, Advance Copy's weekly trawl for all the book and publishing news that's fit to print, with some music thrown in for good measure. Email me at: books@currentintelligence.net.

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In-House: Our H-Net review of the week (they appear Mondays) is James Rodger Fleming's Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, reviewed by Sam White. Our Reviews page can be found here.

Dick Cheney: Cardinal Richelieu, errr, Dick Cheney, has published his memoirs. Given his combatitive character, perhaps its not surprising to learn that he pulls no punches in the pages of In My Time. Robert G. Kaiser calls it "self-serving" in the Washington Post. Michiko Kakutami accuses Cheney of cherry-picking his information in the New York Times. Dahlia Lithwick in Slate looks at Cheney's legacy in terms of torture and the law. David Weigel in Slate suggests that Cheney's just trying to prove that he's a human being. The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal points out the contradictions between Cheney's version of events and that of his erstwhile boss, as well as that of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell, meanwhile, has hit back at Cheney in an interview on "Face the Nation." Condoleeza Rice, another target of Cheney, has also fought back, saying that he has attacked her integrity. Jena McGregor looks at how Cheney has used the media of political memoir.  The Wall Street Journal has excerpts. Meanwhile, apparently Cheney fears being prosecuted as a war criminal, which the Christian Science Monitor says is unlikely. And lastly, Foreign Policy hosted a roundtable on the human lightning rod known as Dick Cheney. 

With Friends Like These...: Cheney does like Tony Blair, though, heaping praise on the former British PM in his new memoir.

Kashmir: To call the Kashmir a "contested region" is a bit of an understatement. It's kind of like saying there are a few controversial claims to Jerusalem. Anyway, the very first Kashmiri book festival has had to be cancelled due to, you guessed it, security fears.

Libya: Happily, the reign Colonel Moumar Gaddafi is on its last legs. Daniel Barrow looks at how Libyan authors turned to fiction to counter the colonel during his reign. Salon had an interesting idea, approaching novelists for their take on the Libyan strongman's state of mind in these last days. The results are here.

Leningrad: Leningrad is, of course, once again St. Petersburg. But in the Second World War, it was the site of a vicious siege by the Nazis, lasting a total of 872 days before the Germans were finally beaten off by the Russians. Anna Reid's new book looks at the siege; The Economist reviews.

The Cat's Table: Michael Ondaatje's 1976 novel, Coming Through Slaughter, is one my favourite novels of all time. I remember the day I bought it in the summer of 1994, at Duthie's Books on West Fourth Avenue in Vancouver. I read it in a single day, most of it spent lazing on the lawns of the University of British Columbia. I've re-read it at least a half-dozen times since. Ondaatje has a new novel, The Cat's Table, out. Annie Proulx reviews.

Guardian First Book Award: The long list was just announced this morning. 

Turkey: Turkey, specifically, Istanbul, is the home of one of my favourite writers, Orhan Pamuk. Jason Goodwin offers up his ten favourite books about the enigmatic nation.

HAL 9000: I'm intrigued by the new website, BookLamp.org, which can apparently offer up recommendations for you based on algorithms and your tastes. I gave it a try, using the afore-mentioned Coming Through Slaughter. I'm not 100% sold on the recommendations, but it's a start. Kinda neat, really.

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MUSIC

London Riots: The fire at the Sony Warehouse in Enfield, North London, may have in fact been orchestrated by professionals, who used the riots as cover to break into the warehouse and empty it out before the fire broke out. 

Smile: Seven years after Brian Wilson released a solo version of the legendary lost album by the Beach Boys, Smile, the surviving members of the band have collaborated on the release of the SMiLE Sessions. It will be released at Hallowe'en. The press release from Capitol/EMI, the band's label, says that this is an "approximation" of what the completed album was intended to sound like. I've long been intrigued by the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, but just can't quite get into their music. Maybe this will be the catalyst for me.

My Favourite Album: The Guardian's music critics are blogging about their favourite albums. So far, they seem rather pedestrian. I don't have a single favourite album, I have three to five albums that rotate around my top 5, they are, in no particular order: The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses; U2, The Joshua Tree; The Arcade Fire, Funeral; Wolf Parade, Expo 86; Underworld, Beaucoup Fish.

The Worst of the 90s: Rolling Stone asked its readers for their worst songs of the 90s. Not hard to argue with these stinkers. Billy Ray Cyrus should have been thrown in jail for that mullet. And for fathering Miley. 

Revolution!: Back in 1990, Pop Will Eat Itself released an album, Cure for Sanity, which began with some talking head relating revolutionary quotations about music. One was about Lenin. Or maybe it was Lennon. Either way, Lenin/Lennon said that the quickest and easiest way to undermine a society was through its music. China clearly got the message. It has banned music that might stir Middle Eastern-style unrest. One must question their wisdom of banning the likes of Lady Gaga and the Backstreet Boys, though.

Dubai: Australian Paul Kelly was the bassist for an unheralded Dubai-based indie band that didn't go anywhere. But he then went on to start Triple W, a website devoted to linking Dubai-based bands to their listeners. Kinda cool.

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VIDEO

And finally...: As always, some video to send you on your way into the weekend. First, my favourite Beach Boys song, Good Vibrations." Second, Underworld's classic track, "Born Slippy," from the Trainspotting soundtrack. And then, Pop Will Eat Itself's "Touch by the Hand of Cicciolina," from Italia '90. Have a good one.

End Notes for Thursday, 25 August 2011

WELCOME TO END NOTES, Advance Copy's weekly trawl for all the book and publishing news that's fit to print, with some music thrown in for good measure. Email me at: books@currentintelligence.net.

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In-House: Our H-Net review of the week (they appear Mondays) is Niall Ferguson, Charles Maier, Erez Manela, Daniel Sargent's The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective, reviewed by Rudiger Graf. The less I say about Niall Ferguson, the better. Nonetheless, the decade that brought little beyond crisis to the West is begging for systematic study and nuance. Our Reviews page can be found here.

OED: Or, rather, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary; it's news because there is a new edition and it includes such fun new words as "sexting," "jeggings," and "cyber-bullying."

Obama's Summer Reading List: The man cannot get a break these days. Obama's summer reading list has been made public, leading to complaints there's nothing about politics and he doesn't read books authored by women.

Dick Cheney: Long regarded as Cardinal Richelieu to Dubya's Louis XIII, Dick Cheney has written a memoir of his experience in the Bush Administration, In My Time, which will be published next Wednesday. Cheney promises that it will make people's heads explode in Washington. Michiko Kakutani says it might, but mostly due to frustration. Cheney has come out swinging, engaging in the usual spin and half-truths. Wonderful. Can't wait to read it.

Common People: About 15-20 years ago, Pulp had a massive hit in the UK with their song "Common People," about a rich girl who wants to know how common people live, so she takes up sleeping with Jarvis Cocker, the front man of the band. It's a seething, sneering declaration of class. Problem is, class ain't what it used to be, in the UK, or anywhere, really. In the US, the working classes are now convinced that economic policies that favour the rich are a good thing for them and in the UK, the working classes have gentrified and the rump of the class that's left is generally regarded as white trash. Owen Jones' new book, Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class looks at the breakdown of working class culture over the course of the 20th century in the UK. I can't wait to read it, in the meantime, Andrew Gamble reviews.

The Booker: The Economist has video of discussion about the Booker long list. Meanwhile, Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending is the best-selling book on the long list.

Not the Booker: The shortlist reading for The Guardian's Not the Booker has kicked off.

Borders: Elizabeth Minkel is surprised by the ambivalence which has greeted the death of the number 2 book merchant in the US. I'm not sure why this is surprising, there's a reason Borders died: customer ambivalence.

e-News: Apple and various US publishers are being sued for price fixing. And consumers of e-books tend to be women.

English History: The uber-prolific Peter Ackroyd is writing a six-volume history of England. This should be exciting; Ackroyd is a rarity, not only prolific, but he generally turns out excellent work. His histories are always lively and engaging. Vol. I, which covers the pre-historic to the death of Henry II, the first Tudor, is published next Friday. Euan Ferguson of The Guardian sat down with Ackroyd this week.

Ikea: It's ubiquitous. It's in your home, it's in mine. In fact, I'm sitting on my Ikea couch right now as I write this. But I'm feeling a little dirty about it right now. Swedish journalist Elisabeth Asbrink has a new book, And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain (that's the English translation of the title, the book does not seem to have been translated into English); in it she claims that Ikea's founder Ingvar Kamprad did more than flirt with Nazism as a young man. She found evidence of the Swedish secret police having a file on Kamprad from 1943, the year he joined the Nazis as a recruiter.

Confession: I must confess, I just cannot get through Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang. I first tried to read it about a decade ago. Last week I tried again. This time I got a hole 100 pages in, but no further. I know the book is a big deal, winning the Booker in 2001. But I just don't care. I know, this makes me a bad historian.

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MUSIC

The Brothers Gallagher: Last week, Noel Gallagher announced he was suing his brother and former Oasis band-mate, Liam, for slander; the newest twist to the torturous relationship between the brothers. This week, Noel dropped the suit, Liam apologised. Bloody clowns.

Bad Covers: Rolling Stone asked its readers what they thought the worst covers songs of all time were. These are the results.

Smells Likes Teen Spirit: I cannot believe that Nirvana's 1991 classic is 20 years old. The album came out my first year of university. I'm feeling ancient. Anyway, 10 myths about Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.

Lady Gaga: Apparently she's a threat to Chinese national security. I don't know about that. More like a threat to good taste in China.

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VIDEO

And finally...: As always, some video. First, in honour of Niall Ferguson's new book about the 70s, I give you Mike Watt's classic, "Against the 70s." I loved this song back in 1995, brilliant. Then, Shabazz Palaces have finally released their debut album, Black Up. Here's a video from the album, for "Swerve." And finally, Pulp, with "Common People." Have a good week.