Comments on: Faint praise and damnations

By: roac

roac — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:38:52 +0000

(Anybody still here?) Henry, after I squeezed off the line about Iain M. and Rosie M., I Googled Iain. According to Wikipedia, he originally wanted to be Iain M., but his publisher induced him to drop the initial because of the potential confusion(?) with Rosie M. Swear to God.

By: Henry (not the famous one)

Henry (not the famous one) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:23:06 +0000

I know this thread is nearly done, but everyone should go read Steven Hayes’ review of Feith’s book in the New York Post. Brief synopsis: falsus in uno, falsuus in omnibus: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04132008/postopinion/postopbooks/memory_fails_106253.htm?page=0
Not quite faint damns and not praise either.

By: Henry

Henry — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:25:09 +0000

Ken – many thanks! Dave – “Regrettable Necessity” may indeed be better (although isn’t that more or less the motto of the entire Special Circumstances section, or whatever it’s called?)

roac #43 – that’s a lovely suggestion. I’d love to see an M.Banks/M.Banks mash-up along the lines of “Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod” of “Mervyn Keene, Clubman” (I’m currently reading the relevant Jeeves and Wooster novel to my wife – are any of Rosie M’s novels described elsewhere in the oeuvre ??) . And if Charlie Stross can do Wodehouse, why not Iain M?

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:33:10 +0000

(I wrote this before noticing that Wolcott just posted a piece on his own blog about Peck. Spooky.)

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:21:53 +0000

a collection of reviews by Dale Peck, who famously called somone or other the worst writer of their generation Rick Moody. Who, to be fair, may indeed be the worst writer of his generation. Peck's review (of The Black Veil) was outdone by James Wolcott, however:

To conduct his investigation, Moody will walk in Handkerchief Moody’s footsteps and cross ‘a bridge of ghosts’ into the New England of Puritan belief and Indian raids. He will quote extensively from Handkerchief’s diaries, visit graveyards, describe the rooms he lived in, put Hawthorne’s text under the microscope for dissection, and explore every crooked branch of the family tree. He will bore us, bore us, and bore us some more.

Permit a personal note. I pride myself on being a professional. I’ve reviewed epic borers by John Barth and Harold Brodkey that would have broken the spirit of Cochise. Here I nearly met my match. It took every ounce of fading willpower to get through word-choked pages in The Black Veil that seemed to stare back, defying anyone to finish them...

By: mjc

mjc — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:44:09 +0000

Gerhard Weinberg on Niall Ferguson’s Pity of War:

“There are indeed many interesting and challenging ideas in this book… But for the basic thesis of the work, one might well point out that those who walk on their hands instead of their feet do see the world differently, but not therefore necessarily more clearly.”

By: SG

SG — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:41:06 +0000

Ken macleod, whether you are right or wrong about that maggoty scene happening, I can assure you that I read a few years ago in the Sydney Morning Herald about someone who had been a victim of exactly the underlying causal events in The Wasp Factory. (Obviously to say what those underlying events were would be to spoil the whole novel for other commenters, so I shan’t). When I read the account I assumed Iain Banks had read something similar somewhere.

By: Ken MacLeod

Ken MacLeod — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:15:51 +0000

Henry – I’ll pass the ship name on.

By: Danny Yee

Danny Yee — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:19:11 +0000

jamesp @ 70: What's wrong with Christiansen's book on the Northern Crusades? I thought it was rather good, actually, as is his The Norsemen in the Viking Age.

By: Kris

Kris — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:29:30 +0000

Douglas J. Feith is the spitting image of Dennis the Menace’s father. Seriously.

What other hells has he wrought?

By: DC

DC — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:44:09 +0000

From the Irish Times again, Brian Dillon reviewing the reviewer (specifically a collection of reviews by Dale Peck, who famously called somone or other the worst writer of their generation):

“And then there is the matter of his own style: a medium in which “transition” is a verb, and banal metaphors so belaboured that by the time he announces (of an obscurely significant hole in the ground) “I want to embrace that image, but also let it go”, this reader could only sigh: yes Dale, please, give it up… And if that sounds “snarky”, consider this: “genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby”. That was Walter Benjamin, a critic who deserves better than to be seen in the same sentence. As Dale Peck.”

By: JamesP

JamesP — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:16:31 +0000

I have a not very good book on the Northern Crusades that has, on the back, ‘There is only one book in English on the Northern Crusades. This is it.’ Which one can read with either an upwards or downwards tone at the end, really.

By: Ray Davis

Ray Davis — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:50:48 +0000

Ahem. “Ellmann”; “is”. Where’s the copy editor in this joint?

By: Ray Davis

Ray Davis — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:47:16 +0000

My all-time favorite was plucked from the London Times and plastered on the back of the first edition of Richard Ellman’s James Joyce biography:

“If Joyce be a great writer, then this be a great book.”

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:50:34 +0000

#64 I’m not so sure. As far as I can tell, the provenance “ancient Chinese saying invented by Ernest Bramah” is fast become as general and spurious as “ancient Chinese saying”.

See, for example May you live in interesting times