Home again, and with a long novel-reading post percolating in my head for later, but for now, check out Sarah Goldstein's excellent Salon interview with Michael Chabon (link via Neil Gaiman) and Sarah Weinman's thought-provoking observations on Chabon and the Yiddish language at her blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.
(The London trip was good but tiring; in blog-related news, though, I will just observe that I had a delightful lunch with Maxine at the British Library and while our conversation was altogether quite lovely the single thing she told me that I'm most tickled by--have I got this right, or has my sieve-like memory betrayed me?!?--is that her grandfather was an agriculturalist who bred the strain of wheat used for Weetabix, the breakfast cereal that's recently been on my mind and my menu...)
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You are absolutely right, Jenny! (About the Weetabix.)
ReplyDeleteIt was lovely to meet you, too! Glad your trip was enjoyable. I meant to mention Patrica Cornwell and Jonathen Kellerman as examples of authors who have got "too big to edit", as we were disussing.
Looking forward to more light reading, now you are back.
Hearing all this talk of the new Chabon release makes me a little sad…
ReplyDeleteA year ago, I would have been thrilled and probably obtained an advanced reading copy. He’s been my “favorite” author since I first read his debut novel THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH back in the early 90s.
But I can no longer support the work of an author who has no regard for the story and characters that put him on the literary map.
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a film version of MOP coming out later this year… Written and directed by the guy who brought us DODGEBALL, in which he’s CHANGED 85% of Chabon’s original story.
And the sad part is… Michael Chabon himself APPROVED of the script!
WHY would he do this? I can only think of one possible answer: $$
If you are a Chabon fan, esp MOP, I suggest you do NOT see this movie. You will be sadly disappointed at the COMPLETE removal of the gay character, Arthur Lecomte, and the fabrication of a romantic love triangle between Art Bechstein, Jane Bellwether, and a bi-sexual Cleveland Arning. And really, what is MOP without the presence of Phlox Lombardi? Alas, she’s barely in it.