Salon‘s Laura Miller lays the hurt on Chuck Palahniuk. I’ll concede that his books all have the same (over-stylized) voice and can get repetitive and tiresome after awhile, but I don’t think he’s as bad as all that…more like trashy pleasure reading for the misanthropically-inclined. I’ll take him over most light fiction any day of the week…In fact, I just picked up Lullaby for the flight home.
Category: Authors
Armies of the Nut.
“Democracy, more than any other political system, depends on a modicum of honesty. Ultimately, it is much at the mercy of a leader who has never been embarrassed by himself.” Norman Mailer weighs in on the Iraq War, Weaponsgate, and Dubya’s aircraft carrier stunt.
Hoopy Froods.
Speaking of the Bugblatter Beast, Hitchhiker’s is back on the move. I don’t know anything about these two guys, but hopefully they’ll see this as their big break and do the book justice. At least with Jay Roach gone, we no longer have to worry about Mike Myers mugging as Zaphod.
Oompa Loompa Doompadee do.
Tim Burton is tapped for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake. I’m not sure if a remake is really necessary, but, if you’re going to do one, I suppose Burton is the man to helm it. And in other directing news, Darren “Requiem for a Dream” Aronofsky wil be helming Lone Wolf and Cub. Does this mean Batman: Year One is dead?
Gonzo to the Rim.
I weep for Sacramento, but so what? It was like betting on a three-legged horse. Dr. Thompson checks in from the NBA finals.
If it ain’t Baroque…
Via LinkMachineGo, Neal Stephenson offers up a very brief excerpt from Quicksilver, which is now being labeled as “Volume One” in a Baroque Cycle. Waterhouse, Shaftoe, Enoch…it looks like Stephenson’s world is becoming increasingly Faulkneresque.
The Crying of Lot 84.
“His anger, let us go so far as to say, was precious to him. He had lived his way into it – in Burma and Paris and London and on the road to Wigan pier, and in Spain, being shot at, and eventually wounded, by fascists – he had invested blood, pain and hard labour to earn his anger, and was as attached to it as any capitalist to his capital.” The Guardian excerpts Thomas Pynchon’s forthcoming intro to 1984. (Via Random Walks.)
Trail Fever.
Liar’s Poker and New New Thing author Michael Lewis (and family) follow the Mark Twain trail for Slate. Already more entertaining than his dispatches from France.
Oxford Blues.
By way of LinkMachineGo and Lots of Co., Phillip Pullman announces he’s bringing back Lyra (of the His Dark Materials trilogy) for a short story and follow-up novel. No word on the Ratner-Mendes film reports of a few days ago.
Dodge this.
The final trailer for The Matrix Reloaded is now online. And – for the return of Agent(s) Smith if nothing else – it looks like more fun than you can shake a stick at. With two of these, The Hulk, and X2, it looks like we’re headed for a fanboy summer. Speaking of which, isn’t it about time for some quality Return of the King news?
By, the way, I finally caught Final Flight of the Osiris, and while it was ok it definitely wasn’t worth sitting through Dreamcatcher for. Dreamcatcher was basically two and a half hours of being stuck in the last fifty pages of a Stephen King novel. [King starts great stories but all too often (It, The Stand, The Tommyknockers…heck, almost all of ’em) has no idea how to finish them.] I’m not sure how closely the movie followed the book, but it was just all over the place, and it made no sense on many levels. (What exactly is the life-cycle of these creatures?) After forty-five minutes, I was really bored. Can’t say I recommend it, that is unless watching a misshapen-looking Donnie Wahlberg proclaim “I Duddits!” to the heavens is your bag.