His publishing career includes over ninety books of poetry and twelve assemblages of traditional and avant-garde poetry including Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poems from Africa, America, Asia & Oceania (1968), which celebrates its fiftieth year with a revised and expanded edition, to be launched while Rothenberg is in Australia. Professor Jerome Rothenberg (UCSD) is an internationally celebrated poet, translator, anthologist and performer who is renowned as an instigator of the 20 th century critical movement known as ethnopoetics. Translation & Othering as Forms of CompositionĪbstract: Along with anything inherently personal and experiential in my writing I have turned to a range of processes deliberately linking my work to that of others – both predecessors and contemporaries. This has involved the exploration of translation as a form of composition, but also related procedures like collage, appropriation, and the making of large anthology-like works such as Technicians of the Sacred and Barbaric Vast & Wild, the totality of which I speak of as “othering”. My presentation here will offer a chronology of such works of mine and others, with an emphasis on “total translation” in the 1980s and “variations” and “autovariations” in the present.
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Herman Melville (the brains behind Moby-Dick) reacted to "Young Goodman Brown" the exact same way. Why? Did he underestimate what he'd written? But for some reason, Hawthorne repeatedly decided not to include "Young Goodman Brown" in his early collections of stories. "Young Goodman Brown" deals with some heavy stuff: the grip of the past, the power of social expectations, and the transformation of a single person's entire way of living. (That would be The Scarlet Letter.) So you can think of "Young Goodman Brown" (published in 1835) as a kind of preview of The Scarlet Letter (1850): all the same themes, many fewer pages. "Young Goodman Brown" is one of Hawthorne's signature stories-even if it didn't exactly make Nathaniel Hawthorne famous. More like evil, witchcraft, and the sudden loss of innocence. With a title like "Young Goodman Brown," you're probably expecting a fun romp about a bright-eyed lad strolling merrily through the forest, pretty much like a 19th-century Disney cartoon. (Could it be set in Brooklyn? It could.) Nor is it interested in creating a nuanced, intriguing, or even three-dimensional portrait of Publishing World for readers who may not already be involved - or, to use the narrator's preferred word, embroiled - in the literary sphere. It has no paragraph breaks, no chapters, almost no plot, and no interest whatsoever in life outside the publishing industry. “Dead Souls” takes place during one long night at the bar of a London Travelodge, where Wiese tells the story of his downfall to the narrator, a supremely irritating, hyper-self-conscious poetry magazine editor. It is undeniably a smart book, and, in certain ways, a good one. Riviere is sharp and funny, and he fills his novel with insights that are both rude and correct. In general, I feel similarly toward Dead Souls. As a critic who strives to be completely honest, I can't help but take this proclamation as a bit of an insult - what am I, chopped liver? - but still, I know it holds truth. In the sycophantic poetry community, Wiese declares, praise springs from "monstrous insincerity," and is, therefore, deadly. In a scene close to the end of the English poet and publisher Sam Riviere's debut novel “Dead Souls,” a twice-disgraced poetry plagiarist named Solomon Wiese explains that, before he got expelled from the literary establishment, he never listened when people complimented his work. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasn't nearly as Wicked as we imagined. This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times bestseller Wicked views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked" offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasn t nearly as Wicked "as we imagined." About the Book This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times "bestseller Wicked "views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Jennifer Jones, who killed her friend when she was only ten years old. But Alice can’t stop reading the newspaper stories and watching the TV spots about Jennifer Jones-JJ, the infamous child killer. Life is normal, and quiet, which is just the way she likes it. She has a job at the Coffee Pot, a boyfriend who loves her, and a home in Rose’s apartment. How the good and bad guys are not so clearly defined in real life situations.Īlice Tully only wants to live a normal life. The life she has tried to build is turned upside down and if she isn't careful she could lose everything, the boyfriend she loves, the friends she's made, even the identity that she's created for herself out of a past that doesn't seem to want to let her go.Ī sad novel about redemption and forgiveness. She has been forced to start a new life under a new name, but just as she begins to get her new life going, the reporters show up, the secret investigators, people sent to search for someone who no longer exists: JJ. JJ is a person, fragile like everyone else and living with the burden of her past. You are taken into the story through JJ's eyes, you do feel anger for what she did but you feel sorrow too. It's a book that shocks you, firstly at it's content, but secondly and most importantly at the way it makes you feel about the protagonist: JJ. I've been a fan of Anne Cassidy for years and this is my favourite of her books. Her glasses are ugly and everything else about her is pretty average and ordinary, which means her chances of going out with a hot boy and climbing the social ladder, or even getting a decent dance at the school sock hop, are slim to none. Robin Morgan is fifteen years old and shy. She struggles with a lot of the same insecurities that I did at that age (although Robin is more concerned with social standing and getting a boyfriend than I ever was.) Second, it focuses on rehabilitating abused and frightened animals, a cause that is near and dear to me. First, the main character, Robin, is shy, most likely an introvert (before that term gained any popularity) and thus intimately relatable. But I think this book resonated with me for two big reasons. Odd, because it isn’t the usual kind of thing you’d think I’d read. This ancient, battered, falling-apart, yellow-paged copy of The Shy Ones is one of my most treasured books, salvaged from my middle school library when they were weeding. As usual, she had lost her pillow during the night. She rolled over to lie face down, toes hooked over the foot of the bed, hands dangling from either side, her nose pressed against the sheet. No need this morning to force her eyes open until they were ready to open. Robin woke slowly, inch by inch, savoring the delicious no-school feeling. Form in One-Way Street is no mere envelope, but the very arena in which these objects and phenomena clash and generate their sparks. This edition’s index testifies to the dizzying thematic diversity of Benjamin’s undertaking: children’s toys, capital punishment, money, mobs, utopia, fancy goods, misery, souvenirs, beggars, and red neon advertising signs reflected in pools of dirty rain. Its formal daring is unmatched by any of Benjamin’s earlier work… One-Way Street is dead set on a new mode of materialism, one that shares with Surrealism an esteem for everyday objects, debris, junk, and dross-for whatever is marginal, marginalized, outmoded, or fleeting. The prose in One-Way Street is positively electrified by the historical moment…Far more important than any residues of past literature, however prevalent, are the ways in which One-Way Street ushers in a wholly original literary aesthetics. Yet as old allegiances are tested and fresh alliances forged, all are unaware of the appearance of a new breed of demon, more intelligent-and deadly-than any that have come before.īONUS: Now with twenty pages of bonus material, including an exclusive interview with Peter V. Once, the Shar’Dama Ka and the Warded Man were friends. But the Northerners claim their own Deliverer: the Warded Man, a dark, forbidding figure. He has proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer, and he carries ancient weapons-a spear and a crown-that give credence to his claim. For each deleted scene, I give a short introduction to explain why it did not appear in the final draft. The world remains under siege by demonkind stalking the land when the sun goes down. Out of the desert rides Ahmann Jardir, who has forged the desert tribes into a demon-killing army. Peter V Brett :: Excisions Some of those lost Demon Cycle scenes are, in my opinion, worth reading, and the stories that go with them are an interesting insight into the editing process. Peter Bretts The Desert Spear continues the post-apocalyptic adventure he began in his highly acclaimed debut, The Warded Man. Brett, The Desert Spear is book two of the Demon Cycle, pulling the reader into a world of demons, darkness and heroes. But is the return of the Deliverer just another myth? Perhaps not. Continuing the impressive fantasy series from author Peter V. Legends tell of a Deliverer: a general who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. The night now belongs to voracious demons that prey upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind half-forgotten symbols of power. There are rival conceptions in the present or “third” Quest for the Historical Jesus. In fact, among the skeptical scholars who try to discern the truth about “the historical Jesus” (as opposed to “the Christ of faith”), the Jesus-as-failed-political-revolutionary view is not the dominant one. It’s certainly been proposed before, but it is far from the only view out there. 100 and 120!)Īt these late dates, Aslan informs us, Christians wanted to de-couple their religion from the failed political messianism that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem, and so the gospels falsify their depiction of Jesus and make him a non-revolutionary.ĩ) How widely received is this view in the scholarly community? (He dates Matthew and Luke to between A.D. However, they are apparently reliable whenever they say something that he can use to support his thesis.Īccording to Aslan, all of the Gospels were written after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. The claim is that Jesus was just one of the many zealot-like revolutionaries of the time.Īslan then cherry-picks the evidence of the gospels, accepting whatever agrees with his thesis and discarding everything that doesn’t.Ĩ) How does he explain the fact that the gospels do not depict Jesus as a political revolutionary?Īccording to Aslan, the gospels were written long after the fact and are unreliable on these points. This is where the book gets its title- Zealot. It’s one of several themes that weave in and out of these pieces, in addition to telling the truth in fantastic forms, finding your voice, breaking the rules, and making something new. The book will also double his fans’ to-read lists and inspire readers to browse the secondhand sections in their favorite book or record shops. Chesterton, Stephen King, and Ray Bradbury, among plenty of others-and anything else that sparks his endlessly creative mind. Lovecraft, James Thurber, Douglas Adams, Harlan Ellison, G.K. He discusses art and life and arbitrary divisions between genres, the film The Bride of Frankenstein, the band They Might Be Giants, the war in Syria, and the work of Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. If the idea of going on a long, rambling walk with Gaiman and asking him about his influences sounds appealing, this is the book for you. The author writes about the thrill of discovering a piece of art that feels like it was made just for you the way certain books or songs seem to slot into a place in your heart you didn’t know was there the way a text can mean different things at different times in your life. Of course, as a writer, he’s created unforgettable worlds and characters, but in this collection of essays, introductions, speeches, and other nonfiction works, it’s his fan side that comes through most strongly. Gaiman ( Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, 2015, etc.) is a fan. The acclaimed author shares his thoughts on stories of all kinds: books, comics, movies, music, and more. |