Category: The Dish

When Jenni Diski was just a teenager in 1964, Doris Lessing – who had then just published The Golden Notebook – invited her to live at her home. Diski recalls what she learned about writing from the future Nobel winner:

Doris taught me how to be a writer. I don’t mean she gave me lessons, or talked about writing. I can’t remember her ever talking about writing, except to mumble occasionally that she was on a very difficult bit at the moment, meaning she was preoccupied, or to bellow as I thumped down the stairs past her closed door “Be quiet. I’m working”. I was very impressed with the idea that writing was work. Even now, I always say, “I’m working”, rather than “I’m writing”, if anyone asks. … I learned what it was to be a writer from being around, in the house, day by day, observing her being one. …

To sum it up, being a writer meant:

getting on with it. To Doris, it wasn’t a vanity project, but work that she had to do to earn a living and to fulfil her need to be what she was. Being a writer wasn’t glamorous and she had no patience with the notion of waiting for inspiration or writer’s block. It was all about the act of writing, beginning and finishing and then getting on with the next book, and nothing else. I don’t remember her going to launch parties, or giving many interviews, and she never did public readings back then. She wasn’t overly interested in reviews, either. She just wrote. Really, I think of her being herself only when she was behind her closed door, working the keys on the typewriter.

Diski’s takeaway:

How you go about the writing is not the main thing, nor even what you write. Knowing that you are a writer and getting on with it, is what has to happen before anything else. Focus is the point. And I will always be grateful to Doris for giving me that insight.

Meanwhile, Phyllis Rose sticks to simple writing advice for her students:

[I]f they stall, I tell them, “When in doubt, begin your piece with ‘when.’ This will push you into narrative.” That advice has helped many. The other advice I often have to give is “Bash it out.” I urge people to get something on paper and then work it. I tell them “Writers need words on a page to edit the way sculptors need stone, clay, or wood to carve or mold. You have to spew out your own material before you can shape it. So bash it out.”

Today marks the final day of National Library Week. In an essay adapted from The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson, Charles Simic celebrates the democratic draw of the institution:

Like many other Americans of my generation, I owe much of my knowledge to thousands of books I withdrew from public libraries over a lifetime. I remember the sense of awe I felt as a teenager when I realized I could roam among the shelves, take down any book I wanted, examine it at my leisure at one of the library tables, and if it struck my fancy, bring it home. …

Wherever I found a library, I immediately felt at home. Empty or full, it pleased me just as much. A boy and a girl doing their homework and flirting; an old woman in obvious need of a pair of glasses squinting at a dog-eared issue of the New Yorker; a prematurely gray-haired man writing furiously on a yellow pad surrounded by pages of notes and several open books with some kind of graphs in them; and, the oddest among the lot, a balding elderly man in an elegant blue pinstripe suit with a carefully tied red bow tie, holding up and perusing a slim, antique-looking volume with black covers that could have been poetry, a religious tract, or something having to do with the occult. It’s the certainty that such mysteries lie in wait beyond its doors that still draws me to every library I come across.

Previous Dish on libraries here, here, and here.

(Photo by Robert Dawson from The Public Library)

Michael Cronin presents the central argument of Emily Apter’s provocative Against World Literature: On The Politics of Untranslatability:

In the anglophone world, where less than 3 percent of all published titles are translations, the idea of world literature would appear to be an urgent and necessary corrective to the political and linguistic hubris of the speakers of a dominant global language. Apter, however, is not so sure. This is not because she does not believe translation to be valuable or important. In fact, it is precisely because she does believe it to be so crucial that she wants it to be taken seriously. Her concerns lie with a notion of world literature that erases difference or sifts out the foreign or the unsettling in the name of easy consumption. In this way world literature mimics a free-market fantasy of the endless, frictionless circulation of goods and information. In this McDonaldization of the written word, there is no room for difficulty or opacity.

Gloria Fisk finds herself unconvinced:

What does a critic oppose, exactly, when she takes a stand “against world literature”? Emily Apter takes that polemic as the title of her latest book, but she uses it to advance a thesis that requires no argument at all: Something always gets lost in translation.

Apter argues that the truth in that cliché is overlooked by contemporary critics, with their “entrepreneurial, bulimic drive to anthologize and curricularize the world’s cultural resources.” Valuing efficiency over exactitude, these antagonists read The Divine Comedy as a perfect replica of Divina Commedia, and they teach others to repeat their error. To slow their progress, Apter proposes the idea of “the Untranslatable,” and she assembles a list of words that illustrate it – fado, for example, Cyclopedia, checkpoint. She traces the meanings that get lost when these words are conveyed to rough synonyms in other languages, testifying to the “quality of militant semiotic intransigence” that inheres in language more generally.

But she leaves unnamed the critics who fly too swiftly to worry over such subtle things. And names seem necessary, because the scholars most closely associated with world literature – Pascale Casanova, David Damrosch, Djelal Kadir, Franco Moretti, Rebecca Walkowitz – have written substantially on the interpretive problems translation poses.

Meanwhile, Sal Robinson weighs in on the related debate over whether the Anglophone literary world needs more translations or just more publicity for works that have already been translated. He argues that “different literatures may, in the end, just be in need of different types of advocacy”:

If, for instance, I was publishing a French book in translation, though this would still pose numerous challenges when it came to getting it reviewed and in front of readers, there would be a basic familiarity and context that would make the whole process easier. I wouldn’t expect to have to explain the history of French literature to reviewers. I wouldn’t have to start from virtually from zero.

But this is the situation that Arabic literature faces in English-language markets. Of five recent Arabic novels in translation that Qualey mentions in her post, only one got any kind of English-language media attention: Hassan Blasim’s collection of short stories, The Corpse Exhibition (and even then, David Kipen’s NYT review is astonishingly patronizing – I don’t know if any review that ends by saying that if the author wrote the stories in the order they appeared in the book, then he could be said to be developing as a writer and might eventually go “who knows who far” can really count as a win).

This is an acute critical drought, and the kind of seeding of the conversation Qualey proposes seems absolutely necessary here. It’s not accurate, in short, to assume that all books in translation have it equally hard: some have it much harder than others, at every stage of the game. The idea that a Great Translated Book will just emerge and find its readers, no matter what, has rarely been borne out by literary history, and it has a nasty flipside: if a Great Translated Book hasn’t emerged from your language or country yet, the suspicion grows in the metropole that maybe there’s nothing there worth reading in the first place.

Previous Dish on translation here, here, here, and here.

Jelani Cobb points out the failure of desegregation isn’t just afflicting the South:

There may be no better example of the ongoing scandal of school segregation than the New York City public-school system, which a recent report by the Civil Rights Project at U.C.L.A. found to be one of the most segregated in the country. Black and Latino students in New York have become more likely to attend schools with minimal white enrollment, and a majority of them go to schools defined by concentrated poverty. Three-quarters of the city’s charter schools, which were a key component of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts at education reform, have fewer than one per cent white enrollment. At Stuyvesant, the most exclusive of the city’s specialized public high schools, where admission is determined by a competitive exam, only seven black students and twenty-one Latino students were offered places in next year’s freshman class. New York is simultaneously the most diverse city in the United States and the most glaring indicator of integration’s failures. …

To the extent that the word “desegregation” remains in our vocabulary, it describes an antique principle, not a current priority. Today, we are more likely to talk of diversity—but diversification and desegregation are not the same undertaking. To speak of diversity, in light of this country’s history of racial recidivism, is to focus on bringing ethnic variety to largely white institutions, rather than dismantling the structures that made them so white to begin with.

Former boxing manager Charles Farrell admits to fixing fights:

Fight fixing is such an accepted part of the boxing business that there’s a standard way to do it. You call up or visit the gym of any trainer who represents “opponents,” and have the following exchange:

“I’ve got a middleweight who could use a little work.” [Read: His fight shouldn’t be more than a brisk sparring session.]

“I got a good kid. But he ain’t been in the gym much lately.” [He’s out of shape.]

“That’s OK. I’m not looking for my guy to go too long.” [It’s got to be a knockout win.]

“My kid can give him maybe three good rounds.”

And that’s it. Your fighter’s next bout will go into the record books as a third-round knockout victory.

He thinks it’s the humane thing to do:

Boxing managers have an obligation to minimize the amount of damage their fighters sustain. By the time any fighter gets a shot at a championship – usually his first opportunity to make real money – he will already have had very hard fights and been banged up in ways that will not yet be outwardly apparent to most people. His career is likely to be halfway over. If he becomes the champion, most of his title defenses during the next few years will be tough ones. If he fails in his title attempt, depending on the nature of his performance, he’ll either get more chances or be demoted to the rank of “name” opponent. … Once he’s slipped to the role of opponent, he’ll get beaten up repeatedly, his purses and his health diminishing with each successive loss. And at this point, the fighter will most likely be looking at a post-career future of neurological impairment. He may have four or five real earning years left to him. These are hard facts, but they’re almost unfailingly representative of what a “successful” fighter can expect.

Gracy Olmstead puts her finger on what bothers her about Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher whose refusal to pay fees for grazing his cattle on federal land ended up in an armed standoff with government agents last weekend:

Bundy isn’t upholding state sovereignty—he’s upholding his own personal conception of state sovereignty. … The problem with Bundy’s stance is that he has no higher end in this fight than his own interests. Though it’s true that the federal government’s takeover of Nevada land is decidedly frustrating to many, there are other methods of protest—less flashy and attention grabbing, perhaps, but methods which appeal to both parties and grasp the importance of compromise and persuasion. But Bundy is not interested in such methods. Rather than using the avenues and pathways presented to him, Bundy has staunchly declared his own law and allegiances.

Unfortunately, reality doesn’t work this way. If only it did—we could rebel for paying stupid taxes, refuse to ever attend jury duty, sell whatever we want on the streets without a license. Maybe our world would be better for it—or maybe it would become chaotic and anarchical, characterized by a tyrannical majority that insists on whatever it wills for its own good.

Danny Vinik takes NRO’s Kevin Williamson to task for comparing Bundy to George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi:

Bundy has all the rights and privileges that Gandhi’s and Washington’s people so desperately sought. He can speak his mind freely and practice whatever religion he wants. He can use an impartial judicial system to make grievances and he has the right to bear arms. Those last two should be obvious, given what has happened. …

Bundy also has the most precious right at all—the one that was at the very heart of Indian and American independence movements. He can vote in elections that determine who governs the country. But he can’t dictate outcomes he wants. And that’s his grievance: He objects to federal laws that prohibit his cattle from using government land. Bundy has at his disposal the same tools for fighting this as every other American citizen. He can organize, write letters and support kindred interest groups—whatever it takes to elect officials who will change that land policy. But until that happens, he remains subject to those laws.

Waldman also weighs the problems with what he calls Bundy’s “uncivil disobedience”:

Civil disobedience means breaking a law, publicly and calmly, and then accepting the punishment the law provides, in order to draw attention to a law that is unjust and should be changed. The law Cliven Bundy is breaking says that if you graze your cattle on land owned by the federal government, you have to pay grazing fees. I haven’t heard anyone articulate why that law is unjust. People are saying that the government owns too much land in Nevada, and maybe it does, but until the government sells it to you and you own it, you have to pay to use it. There isn’t any fundamental question of human rights or even the reach of government in question here at all. Mr. Bundy also doesn’t have the right to walk into the local BLM office and stuff all their staplers and pens into his knapsack and walk out.

Secondly, and just as important, there’s nothing “civil” about Bundy’s disobedience. If it was civil disobedience, he’d pay what he owes and then try, through the courts and public opinion, to change what he sees as these unjust grazing fees. But he hasn’t done that. He just refused to pay, and then led a heavily-armed standoff with the government.

This embed is invalid

In a lengthy behind-the-scenes profile of Google X – the company’s secret innovation lab responsible for driverless cars and Google Glass – Jon Gertner offers insight into a program that blurs the lines between science fiction and reality. He describes what it’s like to pitch an idea to “Rapid Eval,” X’s vetting team:

At one point, [Rapid Eval head Rich] DeVaul asks if I have any ideas of my own for Rapid Eval consideration. I had been warned in advance that he might ask this, and I came prepared with a suggestion: a “smart bullet” that could protect potential shooting victims and reduce gun violence, both accidental and intentional. You have self-driving cars that avoid harm, I say. Why not self-driving ballistics?

DeVaul doesn’t say it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard, which is a relief. What ensues is a conversation that feels like a rapid ascent up [an] imaginary ladder. We quickly debate the pros and cons of making guns intelligent (that technology ­already exists to a certain degree) versus making bullets intelligent (likely much more difficult). We move from a specific discussion of “self-­pulverizing” bullets with tiny, embedded hypodermic needles that deliver stun-drugs (DeVaul’s idea) to potentially using sensors and the force of gravity to bring a bullet to the ground before it can strike the wrong target ([Xer Mitch] Heinrich’s). Then comes the notion of separating the bullet’s striker from the explosive charge with a remote disabling electronic switch ([Xer Dan] Piponi). The tenor soon changes, though.

We start talking about smart holsters for police officers, and then intelligent gun sights–­something that firearms owners might actually want to buy. They think that idea might even be worth a rapid prototype. But we also debate the political and marketplace viability of bullet technology–who would purchase it, who would object to it, what kind of impact it might have. Eventually it becomes clear that in many ways, appearances often to the contrary, Google X tries hard to remain on the practical side of crazy.

Zooming out, Gertner ponders the implications of such radical innovation:

To me, the fundamental challenge of fashioning extreme solutions to very big problems is that society tends to move incrementally, even as many fields of technology seem to advance exponentially. An innovation that saves us time or money or improves our health might always have a fighting chance at success. But with Glass, we see a product that seems to alter not only our safety and ­efficiency–like with self-driving cars–but our humanity. This seems an even bigger obstacle than some of the more practical issues that the lab grapples with, but the Xers don’t seem overly concerned. [Google X head Astro] Teller, in fact, contends that Glass could make us more human. He thinks it solves a huge ­problem–getting those square rectangles out of our pockets and making technology more usable, more available, less obstructive. But isn’t it possible that Glass is the wrong answer to the right problem? “Of course,” Teller says. “But we’re not done. And it’s possible that we missed. I mean, I know we missed in some ways.”

(Video: Behind the scenes at Google X)