Beginner’s Greek
If I ever inaugurate an unintentionally dirty-sounding e-review series called “Straight to the author’s inbox,” the first one will be to James Collins, and it will read, “Hey James, how’s it going? LOVED THE FIRST HALF OF YOUR NOVEL! xo talk soon L.” (Note to all the publications who’ve cut their book reviews of late: I will provide these under your institutional umbrella for a reasonable fee.) Because while Beginner’s Greek contains some of the most devastating, vivid characterizations (and character assassinations) I’ve read in the past few years, its lovely prose is marred by the fact that the central characters, Holly and Peter–who meet on a flight, lose contact, and spend the next few years (and remainder of the novel) seeking the lost soulmate–are, compared to the surrounding cast, relatively anodyne constructions. While a bullying husband speculates about his ex-wife, visualizing the clotted hairbrush left out for guests that sums up her pitiable circumstances, Peter chases a veritable ghost, a lovely cipher with whom everyone is immediately enchanted, although all we know about Holly is that when Peter met her, she was reading The Magic Mountain. (“She’s a dead ringer for Garbo. She always beats me at chess. She’s first on every punchline. Her drink is Absolut.”) One of the things I love about Larry McMurtry is that he’s one of the few male writers who can portray difficult, irritating women whom men still manage to like. Collins crushes the women in his novel admirably, but his satire can’t hold up against someone who only gives other people crushes. James: EVERYONE is worthy of crushing. Leave the bewitching, blank siren for Roth. He’s probably trademarked her by now, anyway.
Eat, Pray, Love
A sad truth for those of you out there seeking greater ones: Nothing is more boring than your epiphanies. (Even worse, sojourners–the more particular they are to you, the more they sound exactly like everyone else’s.) Such is the problem with Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey through the particulars of her digestive, spiritual and moral humors–located, for your corporeal information, in the regions of Italy, India and Indonesia, respectively. It’s a bit of a punt to say the book is self-aggrandizing–how could a book focused on one’s spiritual well-being not be?–but it’s the grand the Richard Bachian strokes that provoke the reader beyond speech: “Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely.” (Simply put.) However, we’re a girl! Fish-in-barrel elements aside, of course we loved that someone would eat pasta, meditate and tool around Indonesia for a year to get over a broken heart. There’s a lot to be said for pasta in general. P.S. we leave the 16th.
Never Let Me Go
If all butlers from England sound robotic and all English clones sound like butlers, does Kazuo Ishiguro need to stop giving characters affects flatter than a freshly ironed newspaper? These and other points of information plagued me upon my “completion” — you’ll get it — of the author’s sixth novel, wherein a prep-school love triangle worthy of a great piece of teen chick-lit is inexplicably ruined by the fact that the characters all have to give up their organs afterwards. Much has been made of this great “secret” — and, oops, spoiler alert and all — but it’s no more a secret than the fact that, if a girl tells you her boyfriend thinks you’re a slut, it’s a sure bet he has a huge crush on you. HUGE, Kathy, HUGE. Even a butler could see it.
“I think it’s clocks.” [The Bat Segundo Show, mp3]
“Has done just about everything you can and should do to remain gainfully employed” [WYPR's The Signal, 88.1 in Baltimore, MP3]
“A very busy person” [MBToolbox]
We enjoy it. You can reach Old Hag for any good goddamn reason at all at theoldhag AT theoldhag DOT com.
Old Hag is the work of Lizzie Skurnick, critic, blogger, writer, teacher. Don't talk about Jersey. more...
That Should Be a Word (The New York Times Magazine)
Click for entire list and links of “That Should Be a Word”s. And call them Sniglets if you must, but you’re dating yourself!
The Complete Compendium of Real Housewives Posts (The Los Angeles Times, 2011-2012)
The Real Housewife Series Deconstructed, Dissected, Clarified, Illuminated, Concordized, Taxa’d and, nominally, Recapped.
50 Shades of Gray, A Self-Published e-Book, is the Future of Publishing (Daily Beast, 3/17/2012)
Every so often a manuscript, like an impudent toddler, rises on unsteady feet and toddles onto the bestseller list without so much as a by-your-leave to that ignorant publishing foursome. Such a work is E.L. James’s 50 Shades of Grey, which, out of a teeny e-publishing community in Australia, managed the neat trick of vaulting to the top of The New York Times e-book and print bestseller lists, garnering a seven-figure deal from Vintage, and leaving readers clamoring for the as-yet-unpublished rest of the trilogy, all without ever being in print in the United States at all.
Posted by Lizzie on 07/27/05
“One of the smartest bloggers on the Web” [Forbes.com]
Filed under: press |
Posted by Lizzie on
Damn, Forbes.com! You needs to chill! Give a sister some space and shit. You don’t gots to be all breathin’ down my neck. It’s Kool Moe Dee, motherfucker.
Filed under: The Man |
“A slur of guest-bloggers”? Is that like a murder of crows?
WSTS (Weeping Silently To Self),
Slurry
Comment by Lickona — 7/27/2005 @ 11:52 am
Slurry? Slew? Fine selection?
I have no idea. But don’t worry. It’s only the opinion of one plasticine heir with weird glasses who could not even buy the PRESIDENCY, for Christ’s sake. Probably because he was too busy reading blogs. :)
Comment by Old Hag — 7/27/2005 @ 12:40 pm
Ahem. That’s “Dr. Slur” to you, Mr. Forbes.
Comment by Jimmy Beck — 7/27/2005 @ 12:49 pm
I think it’s funny that the slur IS kind of a slur.
If it’s any consolation, both of you are, like, the only ones on the page now. Peut etre Forbes readers will think, as the TOTALLY ANNOYING INCORRECT SAYING GOES, different.
Comment by Old Hag — 7/27/2005 @ 12:59 pm
`Bout time Ye Olde Haggis gets her propers … congrats, kiddo.
Comment by Uncle Grambo — 7/27/2005 @ 1:01 pm
HOneypie! Where have you been all my life!!!!!!!!!!! So glad you are back and posting the bomb Italian hotties again!
Comment by Old Hag — 7/27/2005 @ 1:24 pm
It’s an awfully nice mention, and completely deserved — but they’re dead wrong about your guests.
Comment by Karen — 7/27/2005 @ 4:07 pm
Ms. Hag — So how come the system won’t put in my email address? Makes me look anonymous (which Mr. Beck complained about) when I don’t intend to be.
Comment by Karen — 7/27/2005 @ 4:08 pm
I propose that anyone who DIDN’T make the list are the real winners here! The Old Hag has blown SOMEBODY at Forbes Magazine, but not the Good Doctor Mabuse! No, sir! I’ve gone this far in my lives without performing fellatio and I don’t intend to pick up the habit anytime soon. (Besides, my tongues is firmly lodged in a few vulvas right now.)
Podcasts with authors that involve painstaking preparation, a purty new design, acutal shipments of brownies sent to Sam Tanenhaus, multiple RSS feeds? What does this get you? Not even so much as a gold star.
Comment by ed — 7/27/2005 @ 4:53 pm
So many comments, so much return buzz to follow. Karen: You are correct; criticism of my guest bloggers has as much credibility as Angela Jolie in salwar kameez and a head wrap; you look anonymous because for spam reasons I set the names to click up the web site, not the email; and Ed, I did not blow anyone at Forbes. You know the financial sector is only into cupping and anal.
If anyone can tell me how to make it click up the email, I will switch it.
Comment by Old Haggling In the Sto' — 7/27/2005 @ 7:53 pm
oh my god– I was still back thinking it’s about damn time you got a hot stone massage when– shit! someone has encapsulated what you are all about– to paraphrase the bathetic Sally Field, “they like you1 they really really like you!”
Comment by bluepoppy — 7/28/2005 @ 2:52 pm