Writers who should be paid NOT to write

At his blog, ABC of Reading, Thomas McGonigle, one of our contributors, has posted an item about writers he'd like to see less from on forthcoming publisher catalog lists. What would they get in return? The post suggests having George Soros establish a fund to compensate these writers for their silence.

Provocative, yes. Among many big-name writers on the list (Ian McEwan, Seamus Heaney and Francine Prose), prominent near the top is John Updike, who has received his share of fairly lukewarm reviews for his novels in the past decade. In fact, he's received quite a few. I looked around. Of his 2006 novel, "Terrorist," for instance, James Wood wrote in the New Republic:

"It is the otherness of Islamicism that is missing in this book. Despite all the Koranic homework, there is a sense that what is alien in Islam to a Westerner remains alien to John Updike. What he has discovered, yet again, is merely the generalized fluid of God-plus-sex that has run throughout all his novels."

Adam Begley wrote in the New York Observer that Updike's 2004 book, "Villages," was too generic; the 2002 novel, "Seek My Face," was tedious to Ron Charles of the Christian Science Monitor. Los Angeles Times critic Susan Salter Reynolds wrote of Updike's 2000 book, "Licks of Love": "The stories are painstakingly written; effort shows on every page. There's too much detail, too much retelling of the characters' most ordinary thoughts. Most of the stories ... feel unfinished; summarily ended, as though Updike simply shrugged."

There are many who admire Updike's work, and I'm definitely among them, but the common thread in the criticisms is that he writes too often. This fall, in fact, he has a novel coming from Alfred A. Knopf, "The Widows of Eastwick," which picks up the story told in "The Witches of Eastwick." I wouldn't dare to tell a giant of American letters not to publish anymore, even if Soros said "yes" to the don't-write funding idea, but McGonigle's post made me think: If there were a little more time between Updike books — say, three years rather than two — perhaps there'd be more room at the bigger publishers for such writers as Gary Amdahl, who are doing exciting things.

Nick Owchar

The Web habits of highly effective literary people

Sitting in a Paris cafe can be highly effective. That is, as far as journalist-author Andrew Hussey and Granta are concerned.

Granta magazine asked a bunch of literary types, from publishers to bloggers, how they make the web work for them. Hussey has, perhaps, the most enviable lifestyle: He throws a laptop into his rucksack and bikes to local Paris cafes to tap in. Another journalist is more disciplined: He opens exactly six tabs in Firefox every morning (apparently, like some of us, he didn't leave a hectic array open the night before).

Litblogger Maud Newton has a pretty hectic lifestyle, abetted by her iPhone addiction. She writes:

The very ADD impulses that enable me to blog the way I do tend to hamstring larger projects, like the novel I’m writing, the review that’s coming due, the day-job work. No doubt this is true of most people who keep weblogs for fun rather than for profit — a dying pursuit, apparently. What still excites me about the Internet is that it facilitates endless foraging, and not only courtesy of my favorite blogs and newspapers. As more publications and critics go digital, I find myself sampling the offerings of literary magazines, squandering hours in the Harper’s archives (which stretch back to 1850!), formulating ever more intricate and passionate dissents....

More habits, both good and compulsive, here.

Carolyn Kellogg

photo of the Cafe de Floré in Paris by sergeymk via Flickr

Update: Seltzer's agent speaks

Faye Bender, Margaret Seltzer's agent, had this to say in a brief phone conversation about her role in registering the website for International Brother/SisterHood, the supposed nonprofit with which Seltzer claimed to be involved.

"Peggy," Bender says, "portrayed Brother/SisterHood as a budding new organization designed to mentor young gang members. She said she didn't have the financial means to host a website, so I did a favor for a client, and registered and hosted it. The information up on the website was information that she provided."

David L. Ulin

Polk award is bittersweet for "Blackwater" author

Winning the prestigious George Polk award is bittersweet vindication for investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. His book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," was ignored by most major news organizations (including this one) when it was released in February 2007.

Readers found it though, putting Scahill on the Los Angeles Times and New York Times bestseller lists long before Blackwater Worldwide security forces killed 17 and wounded 24 Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad thoroughfare last September. And with debate dragging on over whether Blackwater and other security firms (which operate in numbers rivaling actual U.S. military forces in Iraq) should remain immune from prosecution, still more attention to Scahill's book is likely to follow.

  "It took 17 innocent Iraqi civilians being gunned down in the streets of Baghdad for [Blackwater] to become a page one story," Scahill wrote in an e-mail. "If, in any way, winning this award means that efforts to hold Blackwater and other mercenary forces accountable for their killings and other crimes will intensify, that would mean infinitely more to me than any accolades for the book."

19-0?

As a New York sports fan, I loved watching the New England Patriots lose the Super Bowl (and their bid for a perfect season) to the Giants last night. Not only for the victory itself but also because it offered cosmic repercussions — a restoration of the universe’s essential order, a victory by New York over Boston, a reminder of the way things are supposed to be.

The Patriots' loss also represents its own brand of karmic comeuppance, a reminder not to count your 19th chicken before it's hatched. As late as this morning, after all, a book called "19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England's Unbeatable Patriots" by the sports staff of the Boston Globe was burning up the charts at Amazon.com.   

Although the book has since been yanked, the Associated Press reports that it was first offered for pre-sale as early as Jan. 29, nearly a week before the Super Bowl. The irony is that, according to a post at America Online's Fan House, "The Patriots famously fired themselves up to beat the Eagles in [the 2005] Super Bowl by listening to [coach] Bill Belichick reading off the plans for the Eagles' post-Super Bowl parade route."

Hubris, anyone?

David L. Ulin