In The New York Times, Liesl Schillinger counters Machiko’s negative review of Pynchon’s Against the Day:
…his funniest and arguably his most accessible novel, Thomas Pynchon doles out plenty of vertigo, just as he has for more than 40 years. But this time his fevered reveries and brilliant streams of words, his fantastical plots and encrypted references, are bound together by a clear message that others can unscramble without mental meltdown.
So who are you going to believe - Negative Nancy or that cute little girl from the Sound of Music?
The Globe and Mail has published The Globe 100, which is their top 100 books of 2006. Don’t be put off by poor formatting or the fact that the list begins with Marley and Me (Thanks to Elisabeth for the heads up).
The Guardian serves up the year’s best rock and roll biographies.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:11 am
You had me going (for a split second) on that Liesl/Sound of Music Thing. You shouldn’t toy with someone whose favourite movie was The Sound of Music. (I know, I know…doesn’t say much for my sophistication quotient.)
I’m not rushing out to buy Pynchon’s book. I’m already suffering from vertigo with another lousy head cold.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Oh, for God’s sake. Here’s my work-in-progress: “Tupac: He Had Like Five Goddamn Songs!And Half of Them Sucked! He Got Shot! I Get It! Enough Already!”
Actually, I think that about covers it. Just need a publisher.
November 29th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Flava - you left out the five (a guess) posthumous albums, which exceeded the number of albums while living. That list of rock and roll biographies was a little suspect. For starters, it included a rapper bio. Not so rockin’. Where was the Courtney Love bio?! It was a British list. What can you say?
November 29th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
I left them out because they were released, you know, AFTER HE DIED.
Sure, one CD of stuff he was working on at the time I can see, but they pop out a “new” Tupac disk every four months; I honestly think there may be as many as 10 now. If they were any good, I’m sure they would have seem the light of day a lot sooner, and by “good” I mean comparable to than the ones he did manage to release while he was alive, which weren’t great.
But the larger point is that Tupac was a complete fraud, and I’m having a harder and harder time understanding the cult worship of this guy which, if anything, seems to be getting more dedicated every year.
Sure, I get it from a marketing point of view — it sells merch. But I don’t get why people are still BUYING it. One minute he’s a guy from the mean streets of Marin County doing goofy party raps in a giant dayglo hat in the Digital Underground, then NWA start selling albums and two seconds later he’s laying down completely generic gangsta crap as Mr. ThugLife. I mean, this isn’t exactly a secret, and STILL people worship this guy like some street prophet.
I guess it pays to get shot — worked for 50Cent.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I forgot that Tupac was in Digital Underground. Hilarious. You do need to write a biography. The other “notable” rock biography that got my attention in there was the Pink Floyd book. Yawn.