My thanks to Ted Coltman for sharing this cross-disciplinary article from The Lancet, titled "The Great Gatsby and the challenge of unreliable narrators." If you double-click on the image below, it should become large enough to read, or you can go to the site. (You do have to register to read it there, but that is free.) Or email me and I'll gladly send you the PDF.
The good news is that D.C. public libraries are again taking reservations for meeting rooms. (I thank those of you who have tipped me off to that welcome sign of progress.) But the bad news is that the only night any branch is open past 6 p.m. is Thursday. My hope is that sometime in the fall, libraries will again be open on Wednesday evenings, enabling us to resume meeting in person.
As for the DC Center, I still haven't been able to obtain any definitive info on whether it will reopen at all, let alone where or when. As many of you know, the building that houses it has been designated for closure. Stay tuned...
I'm chagrinned to admit that I'd never heard of the poet Carl Phillips until The Atlantic's daily newsletter included his 1995 poem, "As From a Quiver of Arrows" (first published in that magazine) in today's edition. My gaydar was activated well before I got to the line that removed all my doubt, and further confirmation came when I discovered that his "Pastoral" won the 2001 Lambda Literary Award for Best Poetry. (I won't give that line away here; read the poem for yourself.) On the strength of what I've found online, I think Mr. Phillips is a prime candidate for a future BookMen reading list.
Those of you whose appetite for Edward Gorey's art was whetted by our April discussion of Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey will want to check out this auction. But hurry! Bidding closes this Wednesday, June 30. (A hat tip to our friend Lee Levine for sharing the link.)
On the first page of Hubert Selby Jr.'s opening story, "Another Day Another Dollar," the word "Scatah" appears. I'm pretty sure this means "shit" in Greek. σκατά (skatá).
Last week, 14 of us gathered online for a lively discussion of The Great Gatsby. By coincidence (?), just two days later Ron Charles used his weekly Washington Post Book Club newsletter to highlight several new books that riff on Fitzgerald's classic, now that it has entered the public domain.
First up, published back in January, is Michael Farris Smith's Nick, a prequel that imagines Carraway's ordeal in World War I and then follows him to New Orleans. Hot off the press is The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo, in which Jordan Baker, a queer Vietnamese orphan in this version, narrates what is now a gothic fantasy. As Ron Charles says in his review: "The partygoers drink demon blood, sorcery twists the beams of reality, and Jay Gatsby is a bisexual vampire. Finally, the story makes sense!"
If that isn't wild enough for you, then how about this final tidbit from Charles? "Nineteen students at the University of Iowa have reportedly sold their adaptation of the novel to Independent Pictures and Fugitive Films. Gilded in Ash, the product of a creative English course last fall, reimagines Gatsby as an African American woman who works as an art forger. No word yet on whether the studio will actually make the movie, but as Nick says, 'Reserving judgment is a matter of infinite hope.'"
The June 18 New York Times Books section includes a moving essay about one of Elizabeth Bishop's best-known poems, "One Art," written toward the end of her life in the midst of a prolonged separation from her partner, Alice Methfessel. (Her grief over losing both her parents while quite young, and the suicide of her first lover, Lota de Macedo Soares, presumably fueled the poem's air of quiet desolation, as well.)
In "19 Lines that Turn Anguish into Art," critics Dwight Garner and Parul Sehgal analyze the poem's imagery and structure, which is almost, but not quite, a villanelle--the only time she ever employed that form. They also note that Bishop, who was not by nature a confessional writer, reworked the poem quite substantially over several years. Even if you already know "One Art," I daresay you will find Garner and Sehgal's reflections on it here well worth your time.
