Random links: Madeleine L’Engle, creative publicity and awards

Madeleine L’Engle: A wonderful storyteller died last week. "A Wrinkle in Time" was a book that taught many children to dream of other worlds, including the realms of science, long before other authors--like Philip Pullman--appeared. Many obits and tributes have been posted since the news broke.

Earlier this year, the publisher Square Fish repackaged and relaunched L’Engle’s "Time Quintet" (the novels "A Wrinkle in Time," "A Wind in the Door," "A Swiftly Tilting Planet," "Many Waters" and "An Acceptable Time") to introduce a new generation of readers to the late author.

Creative publicity: Last October, in the pages of Book Review, Ursula K. Le Guin reviewed Susanna Clarke’s "The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories," the follow-up to her Rowling-sized novel of wizardry "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell." Le Guin offered some mild praise but overall found the book small and unimportant. Well, that didn’t stop Bloomsbury from using her words on the cover of the new paperback. There she is, declaring that the book is "Vivid and amusing...magically funny." Uh, actually, Le Guin’s comment was only about one story in the collection. Here’s what she wrote:

" ‘Tom Brightwind or How the Fairy Bridge Was Built at Thoresby’ is a charming story. Characters, setting and plot are all vivid and amusing, and the building of the much-needed bridge is magically funny."

Nice try.

Many awards: Ian McEwan’s "On Chesil Beach" tops the 2007 Man Booker shortlist though there’s much else that’s interesting (Nicola Barker’s darkly comic ghost story "Darkmans," for instance). Cormac McCarthy’s "The Road" continues its award-collecting journey, picking up this year’s Quill award for general fiction, while Diane Setterfield has been named "debut author of the year" for her gothic novel "The Thirteenth Tale." The National Book Foundation has announced that Joan Didion will receive the medal for "distinguished contribution to American letters" at its Nov. 14 ceremony (hosted by Fran Lebowitz). National Public Radio’s Terry Gross will also be honored with the "literarian award for outstanding service to the American literary community." At a separate event, on Oct. 10 in Philadelphia, Camille Paglia is expected to present this year’s National Book Award finalists.

Nick Owchar

Saying goodbye to Anthony Day, a first-class reviewer

Anthony Day (left) passed away last Sunday; he was the erudite editor whom L.A. Times Publisher Otis Chandler had brought in to transform the Times editorial pages in 1969. Late in his career, Tony contributed regularly to our Book Review section. He was a steady hand and a prolific critic; he was also an invaluable resource for us in countless ways. And, looking back, he was probably our only reviewer who never missed a deadline.

In all the years he wrote for us, deadlines--even tight ones--were never a problem. I could send him a book and say that we needed 800 words by next week, and the answer was always: "It will be waiting for you when you arrive at the office." And it usually was--in the fax basket or e-mail inbox.

We’re going to miss Tony’s presence here in Book Review. For among the many aspects of his career that the Times obituary identified, Tony was a reverent lover of books. One of his obvious strengths was reviewing books about politics, but he also had a deep, abiding taste for fiction, especially the Napoleonic-era adventures of Patrick O’Brian’s characters Aubrey and Maturin. Their maritime roving around the globe during a time of war, I think, resonated specially for a man who had been a reporter in Vietnam.

On politics, Tony’s judgments weren’t knee-jerk or calculated to win attention--which is what you often see today in print, on TV or the Internet. You never felt that he was writing a sharp criticism so that people would delight in his snarkiness: He took authors to task because, well, they deserved it. They got their facts wrong. They might mislead readers to false conclusions that could in some way hurt the process of democracy. In reviewing "War by Other Means" by UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who as a deputy assistant attorney general during President Bush’s first term helped draft policies on torture, Tony wrote in 2006:

"[Yoo] promoted the notion that the Constitution is a mere document that can be easily and safely put aside if and when it turns out to seem inconvenient in the current situation, whatever that situation happens to be. He has President Bush very much on his side. But others view the Constitution as having a weight and an authority that has proved more enduring than law professors and presidents."

Personally, I’ll miss the lesson he taught in how to wear one’s achievements. Although there are many glam-hounds out there who shamelessly name-drop their associations, Tony was more casual about, even seemingly unaware of, the specialness of the circles he moved in.

Years ago, he stopped by the office to pick up some books and showed me a fax of a newspaper column from Henry Kissinger, whom he was editing. Not so that I’d marvel at Tony’s connections, but to show a young pup like me what editing work is all about.

"I wrestled with this one all last night. He’s a tough one," he said. "You never back down because of someone’s pedigree."

On a trip to South America with his wife, Lynn, he described the wondrous experience of sailing through the Panama Canal. I could see the locks in my imagination and then, just when I thought I’d heard everything, he said he squeezed in a visit to Gabriel García Márquez during the trip. They drank cocktails and watched the sunset. "He is a good host," he said.

Tony was a lifelong student of Classical literature; for us he assessed new translations of Horace, Catullus and Virgil. Reading David Ferry’s translation of Virgil’s "Georgics," he told me how wonderful it was to hear Virgil describe the seasons as he looked out of his office window at spring arriving in New Mexico. His enthusiasm made you feel regret for having "small Latin, less Greek," and yet his reviews consoled you by showing you things you might never have learned.

I had a package of books on American history ready to send out to him. I feel badly that I’ll never know what he thought of them.

Tony’s last published review was of a Homer Hickam novel, but his final review was to be of a small book by the late Wallace Stegner. It doesn’t feel fair that someone who prided himself on meeting his deadlines will miss this one. But I can imagine Tony saying, "That’s how it is, kid. That’s the nature of things." Maybe, recalling that Virgil expressed the same sentiment, he’d turn to the First Georgic for a final few words (the Latin is for Tony, Ferry’s translation is for the rest of us):

Nec tamen, haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores
versando terram experti, nihil improbus anser
Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris
officiunt aut umbra nocet. pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit....

But though both men and cattle do their work,
And do it well, there are the mischievous geese
And Strymonian cranes, and choking fibrous weeds,
And overshading trees, to trouble the crops.
For Father Jupiter himself ordained
That the way should not be easy.

Nick Owchar

Saunders in the great wasteland

If you missed George Saunders on "The Late Show With David Letterman" yesterday night, drop what you’re doing and check out the video of his appearance.

Saunders was a nearly perfect talk show guest: funny, self-deprecating and full of terrific stories, including the saga of his own downward employment spiral, which ended with him working in a slaughterhouse, an experience he details with perverse glee.

It’s hardly surprising that Saunders should be so engaging; anyone who’s read his fiction ("Pastoralia,"  "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," "In Persuasion Nation") can tell you that. What’s astonishing is that someone in Letterman’s office recognized this and even more, that Saunders made it onto the show.

Although literary authors used to be a staple of the talk show circuit--Jack Kerouac on William F. Buckley’s "Firing Line," Norman Mailer duking it out with Gore Vidal on Dick Cavett, and Truman Capote on "The Tonight Show"--those days are long gone. But watching Saunders, you have to wonder why that is, since he made for far more entertaining television than, say, Jessica Alba, with whom he shared the bill.

Of course, there’s an irony to all this, because Saunders made his network television debut not for his groundbreaking and often brilliant fiction, but in support of a collection of occasional magazine pieces, "The Braindead Megaphone" (Riverhead: 258 pp., $14 paper). Last week, Ben Ehrenreich critiqued the book in our pages, calling it "a grab bag" in which Saunders "loses his grip on what’s at stake." It’s a book for acolytes, in other words, rather than one that will attract new readers. Yet in a media landscape where books and authors are often little more than an afterthought, I guess we have to take what we can get.

David L. Ulin

Getting the "gist" of science fiction: A report from this year’s Worldcon

Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention (also known as Worldcon), took place from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3. It was the first one held in Asia and the second recently held outside the United States--in 2005, it was held in Glasgow, Scotland. Why did it take so long? This is supposed to be the future!

The Yokohama Convention Center in Japan (maybe 40 minutes from Tokyo) is much better than most U.S. convention centers--does your convention center have a Ferris wheel? Is it surrounded by good restaurants? Does it have a moving walkway from the subway?

The most fascinating panels had on-the-spot "gist" translations (as in, "you get the gist of it?"). However, in "New Wave and Speculative Fiction"--with U.S. author Grania Davis, translator-moderator Mamoru Masuda and four Japanese authors from the new wave--the translation only went from English to Japanese. At least there were reading lists.

Like an action movie, the convention highlights are the set pieces: the awards ceremonies, the art show, the Masquerade. The Hugo Awards began with an onstage battle in which Ultraman vanquished some monsters. That’s show business. George Takei, once a "Star Trek" actor, was the awards ceremony presenter (with translator Nozomi Ohmori); Takei was a trouper, standing ramrod-straight for two hours, and by turns funny and self-deprecating.

A few people (unscientifically polled) declared it a statistical anomaly that 19 of the 20 Hugo Award nominees for fiction were by men. Seemed weird when last year saw memorable novels and stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Mary Rickert and Margo Lanagan, among others. Other people have been discussing it, so maybe the future will be different.

The Sense of Gender Awards, for speculative fiction that explores the idea of gender, were a relief; it seemed as if the future might again include women. (This isn’t a permanent hobbyhorse, just one that pops up during award ceremonies--or when looking at the New Yorker’s table of contents.)

And that was it: 2,500 people, a trip to the Ghibli Studio Museum of animation, a new Japanese speculative fiction anthology, a Ferris wheel used as a clock and enough miscommunication to start a war: Except that all the attendees, Japanese or otherwise, were so incredibly proud to have been in Yokohama at the forefront of the literary idea exchange.

Gavin J. Grant

Gavin J. Grant is co-editor of "The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet."

King of the hill

When, a friend asked recently, does Stephen King sleep? Not only does he routinely crank out two or more novels a year, he also performs various ephemeral tasks of the 21st century man of (popular) letters: giving talks and readings, contributing blurbs, writing a column for Entertainment Weekly and playing with his writers' band, the Rock Bottom Remainders, at book festivals nationwide.

King's latest side project is editing "The Best American Short Stories 2007" (Houghton Mifflin: 428 pp., $14 paper), a job previously undertaken by, among others, Raymond Carver, Jane Smiley and E.L. Doctorow. That's rarified company, and King's participation says something about his aspirations to transcend the arbitrary limitations of genre. At the same time, he's also gleefully unapologetic about his love of genre writing, suggesting that what's important is not so much what we read but that we read at all.

You might expect that such a sensibility would inform "The Best American Short Stories 2007," that King would try to blur the boundaries, much as Michael Chabon did with the anthologies he edited for McSweeney's a few years back. Yet what's striking about this collection is how little genre is part of the package, how traditional its contents are. Here, you’ll find Alice Munro and Louis Auchincloss, Ann Beattie and Richard Russo. Fine writers all, but where are the outsiders: the Poppy Z. Brites, the Kelly Links? The closest King comes is with stories by Roy Kesey and the woefully under-read Jim Shepard, whose "Sans Farine" is typically adventurous, narrated by an executioner during the French revolution.

Shepard — not unlike King or Chabon — eclipses the line between literature and popular fiction; he's written stories inspired by science fiction trading cards and old movies, including one from the perspective of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. In "The Best American Stories 2007," however, his vision represents the path not taken, which is the last thing you’d expect from King.

David L. Ulin

The result is something heavenly

Robert and Jean Hollander completed their project to translate Dante’s "Divine Comedy" this summer with the publication of "Paradiso" (Doubleday: 916 pp., $40). Their translation of "Inferno" appeared in 1999, their "Purgatorio" appeared in 2003. The final book arrived in August, and it’s frustrating that the most abstract part of Dante’s poem---and, most students of the poem admit, the least-read section---appeared in the dog days of summer. Did anyone at the publishing house notice Robert Hollander's point, made in his introduction: "Even a veteran reader is startled each time he or she begins rereading the third cantica of this ‘theological epic.’ For here the usual accoutrements of poetic narrative are downstaged by the language of Scholastic discourse.... "

Hello, this is not beach reading.

And yet, the Hollanders have achieved a version that is supple and clear, a triumph considering that the subject matter isn’t lusty, colorful sin but Divine redemption:

That which does not die and that which must
are nothing but a bright reflection of that Idea
which our Lord, in loving, brings to birth.

Joan Acocella, in the New Yorker, finds much to appreciate in the Hollanders’ monumental efforts.

Nick Owchar

True confessions of an award-winning author...

Are there any writers in the world whose promotional material doesn't describe them as an "award-winning" author? Show of hands? Anybody?

True confession time: I am an "award-winning" author. This is indisputable. I have won many awards, even some for writing. (Go ahead, challenge me. I'll personally e-mail you color photographs of my third-place Pinewood Derby trophy and my fifth-grade science award from Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh, PA.) I am also, indisputably, an author. Thus: "award-winning author."

Just don't ask me if any of my three crime novels ("Straw Men," "Shadow Image," "Time Release") or two nonfiction books ("Oops," "Poplorica") have won literary awards. They haven't. They have been finalists for some very nice ones, including the Anthony and the Edgar awards, two top crime-fiction honors, but that's the nicest possible way of saying my novels didn't actually win these awards.

The latest fascinating twist to all this semantic self-congratulation is the lusty promotion of books that have won "in-house" awards, which publishers give to their own books. I won't mention names, because so many publishers do it now.

In 1997, for example, one Midwestern house established an in-house awards program for unpublished fiction. First prize is "publication of the work and royalties on sales." In other words, the manuscript becomes "award-winning" before it’s even a book, and that glorious honor eventually becomes part of the marketing plan for the first-place winner. (It's worth noting that nearly half of the fiction and children's titles published by that house since 1997 have been "award-winning" books by the time they hit bookstores.) Second-place authors get $200, and third-place authors get $100.

And the fee for submitting a book for that in-house awards program?

$50.

Martin J. Smith

Smith is a senior editor for the L.A. Times' West magazine.