STUFF

** Heady praise from Michiko.

Philip Caputo's devastating new novel, "Acts of Faith," will be to the era of the Iraq war what Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American" became to the Vietnam era: a parable about American excursions abroad and the dangers of missionary zeal, a Conradian tale about idealism run amok, capitalistic greed sold as paternalistic benevolence, ignorance disguised as compassion.

** Also worth seeing in the Times: Jonathan Lethem on Kafka.

** The Wall Street Journal tells us how Dalkey Archive Press associate director Chad Post got where he is today.

Mr. Post says that he was lucky. He got in at a time when Dalkey, which then only had four full-time employees, was growing. But his intimate knowledge of the publisher -- born of following it for years also helped -- as did the knowledge he'd accumulated in bookstores about the business side of the book industry.

** John Updike reviews two novels from China: My Life as Emperor and Mo Yan's newest, Big Breasts & WIde Hips

** Transita, a new publisher, says there isn't enough fiction specifically for "women over 45," and it aims to change that. Funny, I thought middle-aged women were supposed to be the only demographic that actually read . . .

** "So I illustrated Gravity's Rainbow." (via The MIllions) Shit, man. Every single page. Here's the runaway adenoid gland on the streets of London.

** An interview with Mr. Zadie Smi --- err . . . Nick Laird

** Is it really that easy for Nick Hornby to get a movie deal for his books, or does it just seem that way?

Comments

[Sui Generis]

Sweet, the Gravity's Rainbow illustrations are at the Walker. That's just downtown! I was going to visit this week, anyway, and now I have something to look for.

[SisterRye]

Thanks for the Lethem article on Kafka, particularly for the point that most critics choose grandiosity in their interpretations rather than humor, "...Calasso, in his bias for excavating gods, may have missed Kafka's grubby, self-effacing foolishness, his insistent embarrassment at grandiosity, his peculiar and magical refusal to keep his eye on the ball -- in a word, Kafka's shrug."

[SisterRye]

And...thanks for the freaking insane link to the illustrations of Gravity's Rainbow, brilliant.