Charles' Orwell links is a great George Orwell resource. Over at that website, I read Politics and the English Language. 59 years after Orwell wrote it, it still feels fresh.
Towards the end of this essay, Orwell wrote that all writers should follow the following rules:
"-Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous".
Now that's hard! I almost wrote 'like a breath of fresh air' at the end of the first paragraph and 'easier said than done' at the beginning of this paragraph ....
On my bookmarks waiting to be read ...
Short short stories by Dave Eggers (via Kingshuk)
Best Russian short stories
Surrounded by Sleep by Akhil Sharma
Hills like White elephant by Ernest Hemingway
Hell Heaven by Jhumpa Lahiri
(The last three links via Another Sub Continent)
Did you know Dante's Divine comedy is available online? (And no, I am not planning to read THAT!)
How big an advance can an unknown novelist expect on her Debut book?
Justin Larbalestier asked a lot of novelists. Overwhelmingly, the answer seems to be - not much. You most certainly can't quit your day job banking on that advance.
John Scalzi initiated a good thread in Metafilter on the subject. In his weblog, he had earlier suggested that expecting to make a living writing -specially if you are a genre fiction writer- is unrealistic. He also has good pointers for those writers who aren't scared off by such assertions!
I can't conclude this post without referring to this awesome interview on Slashdot, in which Neil Stephenson claimed (in answering the second question) that unlike 'literary fiction' writers, sci-fi writers actually make a living writing. He was probably talking only about well-established writers.
I think this comment on Crooked Timber about endings just about sums up all Neil Stephenson books:
While I won't go so far as to say it is one of the best novels out there, it is certainly a jolly good read! Entertaining, stimulating and yes - interspersed with Stephenson's mini-lectures on whatever catches his fancy. He is a bit of an acquired taste - like Jazz or good red wine. Try it - if you haven't already read it.
Interesting writing competitions/opportunities:
Lonely Planet's travel humour writing competition is open to all. The last date of entry is Nov 30.
Outlook Picador Non-Fiction Competition (site registration required) is open to all Indian residents. The last date for entry is Nov 30th.
Caferati short fiction competition is also open to all Indian residents. The last date for receiving entries is Oct 31.
Nanwrimo is a global Internet jaggernaut that you may already be familiar with. As in previous years, you start writing on Nov 1. And anyone, anywhere can participate for 30 days for caffeine soaked writing adventure.
Over the past 2 years, I wrote a few essays on South Asia for a few other webzines / publications. The majority of them are accessible through the following links. (When I manage to add the rest of the links, I would notify though the home page of this weblog).
SatyaCircle
The Jammu and Kashmir Dispute: At the Crossroads
Fighting AIDS in India
Deconstructing Hindu extremism
A cheer for South Asian writers
Outsourcing, its backlash and where we go from here
Living in India
Mr and Mrs Iyer
Greetings from Varanasi
(The formatting on Living in India seem to have gone a little topsyturvy on migration from their previous content management platform)
Others
For sometime last year, I collaborated on an interesting group weblog called IndiaEconomyWatch. It still has some very interesting posts. A good number of these posts are also available here on 'Living On India' into which we had subsumed Indian Economy Watch last year.
Michael Young's 'The rise of meritocracy' is a book I want to get to at some point of time.
Here is a short story by Timothy Noah on Michael and Toby Young, the father and son. Toby Young's tribute to his father is also interesting reading.
In my first year in college, I ran into Peter Drucker's brilliant memoir Adventures of a bystander in our hostel library. It was one of my favourite books in college and made a lasting impression on me. After many years, the month before I ran into another copy of the book in our local library. It was relief to find that it is still a gripping read.
It is a gem of a book. Smart, erudite, well-written, a joy to read. It doesnt require great concentration as some of Drucker's management books might do, but it still has brilliant insights. Read this book just for the pleasure of reading a good non-fiction.
In those dieing days of what used to be the Austro-Hungarian empire, Austria still played host to some of the most brilliant and eccentric people in Europe. The book shines thanks also to this cast of charecters. Consider for example this exchange that Count Traun-Trauneck in Austria (one of the forgotten players of Europe' pre-world war underground socialist movement) had with young Peter Drucker when he was just out of school in the mid 1920s:
Traun-Trauneck
Of course you'll tell me that there are more socialism voters around in Europe these days than there were before 1914. But then socialism was based on hope and not on numbers. Now it is based on envy. That unspeakable clown down in Rome (Ed: Mussolini), understands this. Before the war he was the most militant Socialist and always tried to make up to us and get our people to write for his newspaper. At that Vienna Congress of 1911 he was the firebrand who promised to deliver 'the revolution' should war come to Europe. But then he saw what really happened- and he understood, I'm afraid. to be sure, socialists here in Austria, and those in Germany and France, and the labor party in England are decent enough chaps; I prefer them to the clericals and priests who now rule us here in Austria. Indeed, if I had been in a visible position in the civi service as the one your father held, I would have resigned with him when the Monsignors took over the Austrian government two years ago. But still, that's all the socialists are today - decent chaps who won't do any good or too much harm by timidity and stupidity. But if Socialism really should come to power anywhere in Europe from now on, it will either be a tyranny like the ones you see it Russia and Italy, of it will be a government by chief clerks and paper pushers. The dream is gone. ...."
Later Drucker continued:
The socialist parties in Europe did have the votes the period between the two world wars. But that was all they had- and it did not make the slightest difference. For they no longer had vision, belief, commitment, creed, or credence. ..."
Last week I finished reading "The Elephant Paradigm" - an extended essay about contemporary India' struggle with change and economic liberalization.
Das is an unrepentant social liberal and a champion of free trade. For those familiar with current thinking on trade and globalization, some of what he says may seem to tread over well-worn grounds. Some of the stuff sounds a little breathless too. But the book is still a very good read for anyone interested in India. He is incredibly well read, has a refreshing intellectual honesty and is not afraid to champion unpopular or unconventional opinions. At his heart, Das seems to be a liberterian, but one with deep humanitarian instincts.
I did not always agree with him. But I found myself surprisingly engaged by the book.
The book is primarily concerned with the economic and social liberalizations of the nineties and their impact on our private and public lives. In the last few chapters, Das charts out a broad agenda that he feels that India should follow if it is to pull its people out of grinding poverty and illiteracy. He covers a lot of ground and as a result the book lacks in depth. But scattered throughout the book is a lot of food for thought for anyone who frets about India.
Unfortunately, it is not available through Amazon.
Amitav Ghosh has a new book out in the market! 'Hungry Tide' is not yet available in US bookstores, although it seems to be available through Amazon in UK.
This page links to its reviews in British newspapers. Outlook also reviewed the book here. Indrajit Hazra, another Bengali writer writing in English, interviewed Ghosh about his book and reviewed it for Hindustan Times.
Also, Ghosh's website now sports a new look. Page navigation is still rather painful, but there is a lot of interesting content -specially for us Ghoshofiles.
Kingshuk sent this to me a few days back. I thought it is very good.
We drop you at O?Hare with your young husband,
two slim figures under paradoxical signs:
United and Departures. The season?s perfect oxymoron.
Dawn is a rumor, the wind bites, but there are things
fathers still can do for daughters.
Off you go looking tired and New Wave
under the airport?s aquarium lights,
with your Coleman cooler and new, long coat,
something to wear to the office and to parties
where down jackets are not de rigeur.
Last week winter bared its teeth.
I think of summer and how the veins in a leaf
come together and divide
come together and divide.
That?s how it is with us now
as you fly west toward your thirties
I set my new cap at a nautical angle, shift
baggage I know I?ll carry with me always
to a nether hatch where it can do only small harm,
haul up fresh sail and point my craft
toward the punctual sunrise.
?Mark Perlberg
'I tend to send my copy in on deadline, which by New Yorker standards is tacky. It has to go through three or four proofs. The fact-checkers proof; the grammarians proof. And it is amazing. Someone does go to see the film, to make sure I'm not lying. If I'm reviewing a Tim Burton film and I say that Ewan McGregor's wearing a bright blue shirt, they'll say to me, 'It's more like bright turquoise'. But you should get it right, especially if you're going to have some fun with it. Otherwise it's cheating. The New Yorker is the only place in the world where you can pull a piece to change a comma to a semi-colon. It's a haven for the pedant. I love it."
Anthony Lane (via Bookslut)
Identity Theory has an interesting interview with Saira Shah here. (I have another post on her memoir here)
The article by Hari Kunzru on why he refused the Llewellyn Rhys Prize is touching. There is actually some precedence for this sort of stuff. Amtav Ghosh refused the commonwealth writers prize for 'Glass Palace' in 2001. And of course Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the Brits in 1919 in the wake of Jalianwala Bagh.
Andrew Arnold has a nice lineup of the books from the last 25 years of graphic novels.
Kinky Friedman wants to be the governor of Texas. For a moment there, I felt like writing that people get the politicians they deserve, but the risk of an odd Texan coming back and reminding me of Indian politicians was too great.
Marjane Satrapi?s graphic memoir Persepolis made waves in Europe. The English translations seem well received in USA too:
Here is the Guardian profile
The Time story
And the NYT review.
Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran is another memoir out of Iran that sounds interesting. Atlantic Monthly has an interview with Nafisi here. The Guardian story is also nice.
'The Storyteller's Daughter' by Saira Shah got reviewed in NYT recently and does sound like something I would like to lay my hands on (via Oxblog). I dont think there has been an insider's perspective (well, it is not quite that, but at least she has an Afghan ancestry) on Afghanistan in English language for quite some time. A very long time back, I read Syeed Mujtaba Ali's travelogue of Afghanistan in Bengali (I also talked about it here). Ali was in Kabul in the thirties right before a coup, during a time when coups in Afghanistan used to be family affairs. This was in the thirties, set approximate around the same time as Byron's celebrated travel history Road to Oxiana. It is extremely well written, but unfortunately not available in English.
Anyway, I don't think these women are representative of either the education or the freedom that is available to most Muslim women in Middle Eastern or Central Asian countries. They mostly come from the educated, city-based upper middle class families that have always been more Westernized, more liberal than the traditionalist rural folks in Asia. But they do go a long way towards demolishing the image of Muslim women that the Mullahs have been trying so hard to project.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
NanoWrimo is a wonderful site with terrific forums, great ideas and cool functionalities. If you have been thinking of writing fiction for the last so many years and it is just that you have been waiting for the right time, mood, leisure etc., I think you should check this out. Many of us need some sort of artifical external pressure to get us kick started. The Nano community does it very well for writers.
Check out this David Thomson interview. Thomson is one of the most erudite and readable people out there on the subject of films. He wrote the 'New Biographical dictionary of films; a book I plan to read.
Guardian has a story on online fiction. The best thing is the links at the end of the article. There is another Guardian story called Envy extracted from the current issue of Granta that is quite well written. I feel some things are best left unsaid and feel a little ambivalent about this story.
Jessa of Blooksluts, from where we love to steal links, has finally written about her addiction.
There was an opinion poll on Best female novelists in Bretain sometime back that BBC reported. Four of Jane Austen's books make it to the top 10. BBC also says that Gurindher Chadha (the director of 'Bhaji on the beach' and 'Bend it like Beckham') is busy making a musical loosely based on a Jane Austen novel. The Jane Austen adaptation that I absolutely adored was Sense and Sensibility. The script was written by Emma Thompson and the movie was directed by Ang Lee. (There was great story on The New Yorker on Ang Lee a few weeks back that included hilarious anecdotes about the making of Sense and Sensibility).
I read Alexandra Fuller's memoir of her African childhood, 'Don't let's go to the dogs tonight'. Check out the book if you get a chance. There is a Random House interview with the author is here. Guardian also has extensive reviews and excerpts from the book.
Guardian, incidentally, is coming to America. Michael Wolff has the scoop.
I also finished reading Evenlyn Waugh's Decline and Fall which was great, dante Club which was good and ....yes J K Rowling's new Harry Potter book which I finished over a weekend (No jokes allowed!).
It occurs to me, that lately I have been reading a lot more writing about writing or writers on writers than actually reading new fiction. I feel a little frustrated about this. There is a stack of half finished books on my bedside. I feel bad just looking at them!
Anyway, I always wanted to check out Zadie Smith's then new book White Teeth. I had forgotten all about it, until a few days back when I read this delightful essay that she wrote, about the experience of having her book being turned into a movie.
It is not strictly true that I am not reading at all. I am in between 'Decline and Fall' by Evelin Waugh and fat WebMethods manuals. I quite like 'Decline and Fall' so far. I am not sure I can say the same about the WebMethods product line.
So I was quite looking forward to reading this essay on Waugh by Hitchens. It is well written, but ultimately disappointing. I wonder wheather Hitchens realizes that what he said about Waugh is equally(if not more) applicable to Hitchens.
Tantalizing as this may be, in conceding that moral courage may be shown by reactionaries or good prose produced by snobs, it does not make the leap of imagination that is required to state the obvious: that Waugh wrote as brilliantly as he did precisely because he loathed the modern world. Orwell identified "snobbery" and "Catholicism" as Waugh's "driving forces," ....
If you replace "catholicism" with atheism and "snobbery" with a certain kind of social insecurity, we probably reach closer to what are Hitchens' driving forces. I am not sure Hitchen would be as enjoyable a read if he did not specialize in intellectual hatchet jobs.
Incidentally, Sid Blumenthal seems to have finally gotten his revenge in his new book 'The Clinton Wars'. (For those not clued in on this, the linked story should provide the background. Also, for accessing Salon, click on the free one day pass thing. You'll have to view some annoying ads before you can access the rest of the content). The book seems to be doing well. New York Observer joked this week about the poor Clinton staffer whose job must had been to shuttle between Bill Clinton's book editor, Hilary's book editor and Sid's editor trying to make sure that these people don't contradict each others when describing the same events.
Appropos of nothing, this literary quiz in Guardian and this world news quiz in BBC are very good exercises for bruising your ego. I am not gonna tell you how I did!
Steve Almond's primer on writing pornography is very cool. I blogged his interview in Identity theory a while back. I really ought to read the book (Of course all the Steve Almond links are stolen from Jess Crispin's weblog who seems to post anything that Almond writes).
Anne Burke in a rather well written rant about nothing in particular:
Rebecca Traister managed to catch the interesting side of LeRoy in a story about him and his rather strange world:
(The last two links via Mobilives)
Reason online has a very good essay on Vaclav Havel by Matt Welch. (Welch also maintains a popular 'warblog', a genre that that I find a little disturbing).
I find Havel one of the most enigmatic people in contemporary Europe. I am ambivalent about the quality of his statesmanship or the wisdom of his politics. But his courage and humanism has never been in question.
Sometime back there was also very good profile of Havel by Remnick in The New Yorker. It is very well written. I saved the link somewhere for weblogging later (with suitably weighty sounding commentary) and forgot all about it until now. (Thanks to google, I rediscovered it in Tigerbeat)
My new article A Cheer for South Asian Writers is now up in SatyaCircle.
In case you want to read more about the writers that I mentioned in that article, the following websites may help. They have a lot of stuff on some of the writers that I mentioned in that article.
Arundhati Roy
Amitav Ghosh
Bapsi Sidhwa
Salman Rushdie
I'll try to add some more links later in the day.
James Grimmelman has written a fashinating, thought provoking essay on privacy, democracy and internet, anchored around the Laurie Garrett fracas in mefi. Check it out.
Thanks to the Susan McDougal affair, I now take NYT Book review with a pinch of salt. First, Beverly Lowry reviewed Susan McDougal's book. No one paid it much attention until Gene Lyons published a scathing critique of the NYT review of Susan McDougal's book. Thankfully, it set a lot of tongues wagging in the book industry. NYT published a partial retraction. People still kept talking about it. Then NYT said that well, it is all because of the freelancers who write most of the reviews and who after all aren't trained as journalists. And finally they said alright, we'll publish a letter by Susan McDougal. I guess this is as close to an apology that the paper of record can get.
These days, it is fashionable for liberals to hate Christopher Hitchens. But I think he has one of the most formidable intellects among the essayists writing today and on those occasions when he does get his head away from the bottle, he is an amazing writer. His article on The perils of partition in the new issue of The Atlantic is quite interesting. I have also been meaning to read Stephen Collini's review of Hitchen's book on Orwell for some time.
Guardian has an interesting story on Escape from Taliban, the Hindi movie made about Sushmita Bandhopadhyay's escape. From what I read between the lines, it seems to be standard Bollywood fare which is a pity.
LAT says that Arthur, a contemporary culture magazine is worth checking out (you can download a pdf version of the magazine from the second link). The pdf version looks ungainly. I hope to grab a copy whenever I go to NYT next.
I don't usually flick two links from the same place in one day, but this Steve Almond interview is awefully good. (via bookslut). I don't share Mr. Almond's contempt for commerce, but it is still a very good conversation.
John Warner has a suggestion for Deborah Treisman (New Yorker's fiction editor). I personally think Matt Gross is right (the first letter dated Jan 31st). In top flight publications, salesmanship does matter. There is no point getting angry about it. They simply don't have the bandwidth when the noise to signal ratio is so high.
(links via bookslut)
Do not bow your heads. Do not know your place. Defy the gods. You will be astonished how many of them turn out to have feet of clay. Be guided, if possible, by your better natures. Great good luck and many congratulations to you all."
From the commencement address that Salman Rushdie gave at Bard College in 1996.
Update: The net is a magic place. Yahoo lists the most popular speeches on the net.
If you feel good about a book or a movie, you probably should not read the reviews. Sometime back, I forwarded Po Bronson's Fast Company article What should I do with my life? to everyone with my new year's wish. Last weekend, I read Caitlin Flanagan's review of his book. Scathing! Unfortunately, it is also well argued.
Michael Pollan's review of 'Fat land' by Greg Critser in the same issue piqued my interest. I would like to read the book sometime.
The best parts of this book show how, in the space of two decades, Americans learned to eat, on average, an additional 200 calories a day. In the words of James O. Hill, a physiologist Critser interviewed, getting fat today is less an aberration than 'a normal response to the American environment'.''
Judith Shulevitz's deconstruction of Byron's life in her review of 'Byron: Life and Legend' was also very good. I did not know Byron was a Don Juan, leave alone bisexual.
there is a very interesting threadon Straight Dope on how other famous writers would have written 'Lord of the Ring' (Sent by Kingshuk). Some of the entries are hilarious.
I am slightly embarassed to admit that I first read of Cavafy in a spy thriller. The old and jaded, but brilliant spy master was fond of quoting Cavafy. I was quite taken by his poems. I had forgotten all about it, until I read the awesome Cavafy translations in Languagehat. Cavafy was homosexual. Some of his lyrics have homoerotic intent. It is interesting how different translators interpret that differently.
Here are the other links to Cavafy's poems on the net: