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VN Sightings/Compilation #2
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Date
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From: Sandy P. Klein <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Saturday February 8, 2003
The Guardian
In the face of fragmentation, splinter groups, offshoots and widespread
refusal to toe the line, it's becoming increasingly brave to generalise
about the world. The Spectator's Harry Mount, one of the many critics who
last week tackled William Hitchcock's The Struggle for Europe: The History
of the Continent Since 1945, certainly thought so: "To say you're European
is about as precise as saying you're a world citizen or a sentient being
or a member of the mammal family."
He also objected that it read "like a very upmarket textbook" (though Noel
Malcolm pointed out in the Sunday Telegraph that this was, in fact,
exactly what Hitchcock had intended it to be). Mount finally came round to
everyone else's point of view and was impressed - but: "You will turn the
513th and final page of this book a very well-informed person; you will
[also] be in urgent need of some non-fact-based light entertainment".
In the New Statesman, John Gray decided to put a stop to the general
admiration of another generalisation - Bill Emmott's argument, in 20:21:
The Lessons of the 20th century for the 21st, that the United States
provides "the only sustainable model of national success". Only if you
ignore some inconvenient lessons, said Gray. Passing over "the failed
transition to a western-style market economy in Russia in silence is a
grotesque omission", which calls to mind "old-style Trotskyists [who]
refuse to admit that the failures of existing socialist regimes in any way
undermine Marxism".
Most were charmed and affirmed by the obsessive attention paid to such
mundanities as belly-button fluff in Nicholson Baker's latest outing, a
study of mid-life crisis called A Box of Matches; John Preston even went
so far as to say, in the Sunday Telegraph, that "reading Nicholson Baker
is a bit like reading Proust with all the silly reflective bits taken
out".
In the Independent on Sunday, Matt Thorne, however, was terribly
disappointed by his "favourite living author". Though "by no means a
complete failure", A Box of Matches is "aimless and boring". Thorne ended
with a bravura paragraph of school-report finger-wagging: "He has always
aspired to be a writer in the same league as Updike and Nabokov, but I
think he is capable of being better than either, provided he stops
frittering away his talent and writes a book that is worthy of him."
[...]
________________________________________________________________________
Review
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,890356,00.html
Guardian Unlimited Books Review
The Horned Man, by James Lasdun (Vintage, 6.99)
Imagine one of Nabokov's narrators attempting to survive in the academic
world of gender studies, speech-code conferences and sexual harassment
committees. This seems to be the theme of James Lasdun's tricksy novel, in
which a Humbert Humbert-ish lecturer is ensnared in an elaborate vendetta
waged by his predecessor, a feral Bulgarian called Trumilcik. Lasdun
maintains impressive control of a plot that is both blatantly preposterous
and horribly plausible. As an increasing number of innocent women meet
gruesome ends, one is teased by the uncertainty of whether this is the
testimony of perpetrator or victim. I was struck by the narrator's
attempts to objectify this nightmare while shovelling a pile of his
persecutor's excrement into the lavatory. "It seemed a matter of
some urgency not to let this event secure a place for itself in my
psyche." You won't want to let this book get to you either. AH
_____________________________________________________________________________
www.suntimes.com
MEASURING A NATION'S MORAL RUINS
February 9, 2003
BY JOHN CRUICKSHANK
O n the Natural History of Destruction is no place to start reading W.G.
Sebald. It's a fascinating and engaging group of essays, but Sebald
established his place as one of Europe's most important postwar writers
with the four novels he published between 1990 and his death in January,
2001 at age 57.
Any one of Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and his
masterpiece, Austerlitz, is a far richer introduction to Sebald's thought
and craft.
Often compared to Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov and Jorge
Luis Borges, Sebald tried in dense first-person narratives to reawaken the
reader's sense of what was passing and what was lost from the world in his
era. He was a self-appointed guide to the destruction of the 20th century
and a mourner for its gigantic failures.
As the critic Eric Homberg wrote at his death: "He wanted to find a
literary form responsive to the waves and echoes of human tragedy which
spread out, across generations and nations and yet began in his
childhood." [...]
_____________________________________________________________________________
Globeandmail.com
Russian duo Tatu is burning up the charts, thanks to steamy video antics
between the young women. Could they be courting controversy just to sell
records?
By MARK MACKINNON
Thursday, February 6, 2003 ^ Print Edition, Page R3
MOSCOW -- A girl named Britney Spears became an overnight sensation a few
years ago when she appeared in her first video dressed as a naughty
schoolgirl, kilt, pigtails and all.
The Russian pop duo Tatu have done her one better. The pair, 17-year-old
Julia Volkova and 18-year-old Lena Katina, donned similar uniforms for
their debut English-language video All the Things She Said, added some
rain to soak their white blouses and threw in a few passionate kisses
between the leading ladies.
The lyrics of the songfor those still paying attention to them at this
point -- scream of frantic teenage infatuation. Lesbian infatuation, to be
precise, in case you misunderstood the clumsy kissing and pawing in the
video.
A sensation in Russia for several years now, Tatu has been rolling across
Europe in recent months, hitting No. 1 virtually all over the continent
since releasing their first English album, 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane,
which has now sold about 1.5 million copies. This week, Tatu became the
first Russian band to hit No. 1 in Britain.
Next stop is North America, where Billboard magazine has pegged the group
to take over the "next big thing" mantle any moment now. In Canada, All
the Things She Said is already No. 33 on the charts and rising.
[...]
Ivan Shapovalov, creator and manager of Tatu, rejects the pedophile label,
but says openly that the target audience is older men in search of
"underage entertainment." Billed "Nabokov's envoy on Earth" by the Russian
newspaper Kommersant, he confesses he got the idea for Tatu after looking
at popular Internet pornography.
He says the fact that the girls' behaviour has caused such outrage in the
United Kingdomhe expects even more in North Americashows that those
countries are not yet comfortable with some aspects of sex.
[...]
Saturday February 8, 2003
The Guardian
In the face of fragmentation, splinter groups, offshoots and widespread
refusal to toe the line, it's becoming increasingly brave to generalise
about the world. The Spectator's Harry Mount, one of the many critics who
last week tackled William Hitchcock's The Struggle for Europe: The History
of the Continent Since 1945, certainly thought so: "To say you're European
is about as precise as saying you're a world citizen or a sentient being
or a member of the mammal family."
He also objected that it read "like a very upmarket textbook" (though Noel
Malcolm pointed out in the Sunday Telegraph that this was, in fact,
exactly what Hitchcock had intended it to be). Mount finally came round to
everyone else's point of view and was impressed - but: "You will turn the
513th and final page of this book a very well-informed person; you will
[also] be in urgent need of some non-fact-based light entertainment".
In the New Statesman, John Gray decided to put a stop to the general
admiration of another generalisation - Bill Emmott's argument, in 20:21:
The Lessons of the 20th century for the 21st, that the United States
provides "the only sustainable model of national success". Only if you
ignore some inconvenient lessons, said Gray. Passing over "the failed
transition to a western-style market economy in Russia in silence is a
grotesque omission", which calls to mind "old-style Trotskyists [who]
refuse to admit that the failures of existing socialist regimes in any way
undermine Marxism".
Most were charmed and affirmed by the obsessive attention paid to such
mundanities as belly-button fluff in Nicholson Baker's latest outing, a
study of mid-life crisis called A Box of Matches; John Preston even went
so far as to say, in the Sunday Telegraph, that "reading Nicholson Baker
is a bit like reading Proust with all the silly reflective bits taken
out".
In the Independent on Sunday, Matt Thorne, however, was terribly
disappointed by his "favourite living author". Though "by no means a
complete failure", A Box of Matches is "aimless and boring". Thorne ended
with a bravura paragraph of school-report finger-wagging: "He has always
aspired to be a writer in the same league as Updike and Nabokov, but I
think he is capable of being better than either, provided he stops
frittering away his talent and writes a book that is worthy of him."
[...]
________________________________________________________________________
Review
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,890356,00.html
Guardian Unlimited Books Review
The Horned Man, by James Lasdun (Vintage, 6.99)
Imagine one of Nabokov's narrators attempting to survive in the academic
world of gender studies, speech-code conferences and sexual harassment
committees. This seems to be the theme of James Lasdun's tricksy novel, in
which a Humbert Humbert-ish lecturer is ensnared in an elaborate vendetta
waged by his predecessor, a feral Bulgarian called Trumilcik. Lasdun
maintains impressive control of a plot that is both blatantly preposterous
and horribly plausible. As an increasing number of innocent women meet
gruesome ends, one is teased by the uncertainty of whether this is the
testimony of perpetrator or victim. I was struck by the narrator's
attempts to objectify this nightmare while shovelling a pile of his
persecutor's excrement into the lavatory. "It seemed a matter of
some urgency not to let this event secure a place for itself in my
psyche." You won't want to let this book get to you either. AH
_____________________________________________________________________________
www.suntimes.com
MEASURING A NATION'S MORAL RUINS
February 9, 2003
BY JOHN CRUICKSHANK
O n the Natural History of Destruction is no place to start reading W.G.
Sebald. It's a fascinating and engaging group of essays, but Sebald
established his place as one of Europe's most important postwar writers
with the four novels he published between 1990 and his death in January,
2001 at age 57.
Any one of Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and his
masterpiece, Austerlitz, is a far richer introduction to Sebald's thought
and craft.
Often compared to Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov and Jorge
Luis Borges, Sebald tried in dense first-person narratives to reawaken the
reader's sense of what was passing and what was lost from the world in his
era. He was a self-appointed guide to the destruction of the 20th century
and a mourner for its gigantic failures.
As the critic Eric Homberg wrote at his death: "He wanted to find a
literary form responsive to the waves and echoes of human tragedy which
spread out, across generations and nations and yet began in his
childhood." [...]
_____________________________________________________________________________
Globeandmail.com
Russian duo Tatu is burning up the charts, thanks to steamy video antics
between the young women. Could they be courting controversy just to sell
records?
By MARK MACKINNON
Thursday, February 6, 2003 ^ Print Edition, Page R3
MOSCOW -- A girl named Britney Spears became an overnight sensation a few
years ago when she appeared in her first video dressed as a naughty
schoolgirl, kilt, pigtails and all.
The Russian pop duo Tatu have done her one better. The pair, 17-year-old
Julia Volkova and 18-year-old Lena Katina, donned similar uniforms for
their debut English-language video All the Things She Said, added some
rain to soak their white blouses and threw in a few passionate kisses
between the leading ladies.
The lyrics of the songfor those still paying attention to them at this
point -- scream of frantic teenage infatuation. Lesbian infatuation, to be
precise, in case you misunderstood the clumsy kissing and pawing in the
video.
A sensation in Russia for several years now, Tatu has been rolling across
Europe in recent months, hitting No. 1 virtually all over the continent
since releasing their first English album, 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane,
which has now sold about 1.5 million copies. This week, Tatu became the
first Russian band to hit No. 1 in Britain.
Next stop is North America, where Billboard magazine has pegged the group
to take over the "next big thing" mantle any moment now. In Canada, All
the Things She Said is already No. 33 on the charts and rising.
[...]
Ivan Shapovalov, creator and manager of Tatu, rejects the pedophile label,
but says openly that the target audience is older men in search of
"underage entertainment." Billed "Nabokov's envoy on Earth" by the Russian
newspaper Kommersant, he confesses he got the idea for Tatu after looking
at popular Internet pornography.
He says the fact that the girls' behaviour has caused such outrage in the
United Kingdomhe expects even more in North Americashows that those
countries are not yet comfortable with some aspects of sex.
[...]