What makes a good comic novel?

Nobody knows what a comic novel is. And once you start discussing it, all the fun runs out. EB White compared it to dissecting a frog (you’re left with innards and a dead frog) but I would compare it to turning all the lights on at a party: everyone looks terrible and you’ve ruined the party. [...] I think they are books that decide something is funny, as Jerry Seinfeld once defined comedy. In Moby-Dick, it’s a coin nailed to a masthead. In Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, it’s the worst best poem you’ve ever read. And yet we feel we’re getting at something the most solemn narratives aim for: an understanding of the human condition, of grief, of love, of death. All the big stuff. The comic novels I love are books that could just as easily have been tragedies. It is simply that the author has decided it’s funny. Andrew Sean Greer, The Guardian

On Satire

For as long as there has been satire there has been an effort to explain what exactly it is. A vast critical literature chews over matters of definition and classification. But the task has never fallen only to critics and theorists. [...]

For Dan Sperrin in State of Ridicule, the basic definition of satire is unambiguous: satire is political. It “offers interpretations of power,” though its point is never merely interpretive. It wants to intercede in matters of state and government, sometimes in support of the existing regime and frequently in opposition to it. For hundreds of years English satire has been consumed with recurring subjects and problems: the legitimacy of rule, the succession of dynasties, the ambition of prime ministers, the administration of government. Aaron Matz, The New York Review 

il libro di cui si parla è: State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature, di Dan Sperrin (Princeton University Press)

 

AUGURI!

Faccio a tutti coloro che mi seguono carissimi auguri di Buon Natale con questa divertente copertina del New Yorker, uscita il 17 dicembre (il giorno del mio compleanno, tra l'altro) 1988, firmata da R.O. Blechman, allora nostro ospite a Milano.

 

The Most of Nora Ephron

The MOST of Nora Ephron (Knopf) racchiude tutti gli scritti, giornalistici e non, della scrittrice, che viene descritta acutamente da Heather Havrilesky, in contrapposizione a Joan Didion. 
"When life gave Ephron lemons, in other words, she made a giant vat of really good vodka-spiked lemonade and invited all of her friends and her friends’ friends over to share it, and gossip, and play charades. Whereas when life gave Joan Didion lemons, she stared at them for several months, and then crafted a haunting bit of prose about the lemon and orange groves that were razed and paved over to make Hollywood, in all of its sooty wretchedness—which is precisely what this mixed-up world does to everything that’s fresh and young and full of promise. ...
Didion’s preoccupation with the cultural tides might naturally seem to dwarf Ephron’s concern with the mundane dilemmas that haunt urban aristocrats—why bother with egg-white omelets, exactly? how would we live without Teflon?—but Ephron was just as skilled at identifying the ever-changing mood around her. Who else but Ephron could express the fickle tastes of the Manhattan bourgeoisie through their shifting opinions of salad? “This was right around the time endive was discovered, which was followed by arugula, which was followed by radicchio, which was followed by frisée, which was followed by the three M’s—mesclun, mâche, and microgreens—and that, in a nutshell, is the history of the last forty years from the point of view of lettuce.” bookforum.

How to Be a Person

How to Be a Person: The Stranger’s Guide to College, Sex, Intoxicants, Tacos, and Life Itself, Lindy West, Dan Savage, Christopher Frizzelle, Bethany Jean Clement, and the staff of the Stranger (Sasquatch Books). Il libro che dovrebbero leggere gli studenti di college, secondo Laura Helmuth, science and health editor di Slate. Perché:
"It’s full of funny, practical, opinionated, smart advice about everything college students are too embarrassed to ask about or don’t even know that they should ask about. How to get along with a roommate. How to get a date. How to break up. How to deal with a hangover. How to throw a party. How to come out of the closet. How to manage your finances. Plus lots of juicy sex advice from Dan Savage. Reading this book sure beats learning all about life through trial and error and lots of mortification like the rest of us did". slate.

I consigli di Joyce Carol Oates agli aspiranti scrittori

I have so much sympathy for aspiring writers. Our profession is difficult to master, and the deluge of advice writers receive doesn’t make it any easier: “Write every day,” “Study the works of writers you admire,” “The essence of writing is rewriting,” etc. Such guidance isn’t wrong, exactly, but it certainly misses the big picture.

As an author with a half century of literary success behind me, I can assure you the only way to make it in this industry is to meet as many publishers as you possibly can and then fuck them. theonion.

Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin ha recentemente vinto il Thurber Prize for American Humor. Ecco quel che dice in un'intervista:
Who are your favorite contemporary humorists?
I enjoy Sandy (Ian) Frazier from the New Yorker. He's already won a Thurber or two I believe. Garrison Keillor is funny, Dave Barry always makes me laugh. My daughters and I have a special appreciation for David Sedaris. ...
Is immaturity essential for writers of humor?
If you're asking if all humor writers are childish, it reminds me of something they say Woody Allen said. And I don't know that he said it, but something about humor writers always have to eat at the children's table. In our family people fight to eat at the children's table. There are food fights at the children's table. We recently had to tell my 35-year-old daughter that she couldn't sit at the children's table anymore. We had to make room for children. clevelandcom.

Ancora su Nora Ephron

Le sue - di Nora Ephron - frasi celebri raccolte in un sito. Tra esse, "I live in New York City. I could never live anywhere else. The events of September 11 forced me to confront the fact that no matter what, I live here and always will. One of my favorite things about New York is that you can pick up the phone and order anything and someone will deliver it to you. Once I lived for a year in another city, and almost every waking hour of my life was spent going to stores, buying things, loading them into the car, bringing them home, unloading them, and carrying them into the house. How anyone gets anything done in these places is a mystery to me”. Assolutamente vero per quel che riguarda Milano. E ancora, "When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you”. ew.com.

Calvin Trillin sull'umorismo, ebraico

Would you say yours is a Jewish sense of humor?

 

All of me is Jewish. You get a lot of theories about Jews deflecting pain through humor. I don’t know about that. I think there is sort of an irony built into the faith. Even in the Talmud where they argue “maybe” and “but on the other hand,” that I always found funny. forward.

Miranda July and the PennySaver

Miranda July è divertente. Per tutta questa settimana il New Yorker pubblica dei brani del suo nuovo libro, It Chooses You, in uscita il 15 novembre da Sweeney's. Si tratta di interviste con persone casualmente contattate attraverso gli annunci di PennySaver, una sorta di Seconda mano. "I tell you all this so you can understand why I looked forward to Tuesdays. Tuesday was the day the PennySaver booklet was delivered. It came hidden among the coupons and other junk mail. I read it while I ate lunch, and then, because I was in no hurry to get back to not writing, I usually kept reading it straight through to the real estate ads in the back. I carefully considered each item - not as a buyer, but as a curious citizen of Los Angeles". newyorker.

Starting from Happy

Starting from Happy (Scribner) è una storia d'amore - molto divertente - scritta a fumetti da Patricia Marx. Ecco quel che dice di sé e del libro l'autrice:

Starting from Happy is your first illustrated novel; your cartoons are speckled throughout its pages. Can you tell me about your process?

Oh, I am not good enough to have a process. I made a lot of mistakes, so I wasted about a rain forest of paper. I used computer paper and magic markers with thin points. My father sold stationery when I was growing up, so it kind of kills me that I have to pay for office supplies. 

Per saperne di più cliccare qui.

The Thurber Prize

The Thurber Prize for American Humor viene attribuito a un libro particolarmente comico. E' un premio benemerito, rivolto a un genere di solito sottovalutato. Quest'anno è stato vinto da David Rakoff per la sua raccolta di saggi Half Empty (Anchor). In Half Empty's essays, Rakoff applies his signature wit to a range of wildly depressing subjects, including Sept. 11, AIDS and cancer.

To settle into this grim worldview, Rakoff had to transcend his "indulged, privileged" early years. "I was cursed with a very lovely childhood," he laments. nprbooks. A dir la verità gli esempi che si possono leggere nell'articolo citato sopra mi sembrano tristissimi.