Books
A novel of echoes, reflections (sometimes inverted), and criss-crossing lines, Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets locates nodes of intersection, spotlights the forgotten, and magnifies the unnoticed. Calendar of Regrets by Lance Olsen. Fiction Collective, 456 pages, $22. By Vincent Czyz Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets had me from the opening scene: a vividly imagined and…
Read MoreThe important question the NYTBR Editors fail to ask is whether the traditional definition and values of literary criticism will survive in an age of ebooks and iPads. Is there a primal appetite for criticism? (Edith Wharton says there is, and I believe her.) How will the Internet shape our innate desire to compare, judge,…
Read MoreAuthor and Arts Fuse Contributor Helen Epstein explains why she decided to take her 1994 biography Joe Papp: An American Life and convert it into an eBook—given what may be the precarious future for the traditional book, she “wanted to save it for posterity.” By Helen Epstein. AF: Joe Papp died in 1991. Why publish…
Read MoreThe mad rush to digitization brings up another host of new issues. Unlike a printed book, digital media requires a change of technologies—computers, software, imaging—to interpret the information. Will digitization serve the long-term interests of knowledge as well as the media it is replacing? It’s unlikely. By Peter Walsh. When we look back from, say,…
Read MoreThis first novel from Arab-American writer Thérèse Soukar Chehade, who teaches English Language Education at a school in Amherst, Massachusetts, turns out to be a thoughtful family portrait that deals subtly with the variegated experiences of being outsiders in a strange land and the pulls of loss, memory, and desire. Loom by Thérèse Soukar Chehade.…
Read MoreIn this valuable book, Gabriel Josipovici raises radical doubts about the aesthetic and spiritual satisfactions of conventional storytelling as well as the unquestioned values of realism, at one point condemning writers simply content to tell a story “and telling it in such a way as to make readers feel that they are not reading about…
Read MoreWords of solace and insight for the New Year culled by Harvey Blume (Short Fuse)—the sentiments are shared by the rest of the Arts Fuse contributors and editorial staff. This has been a great year for the magazine, and there are exciting developments to come. ========================================= My aim is: to teach you to pass from…
Read MoreWhat An Object of Beauty proves is that while people were fixated on his Hollywood day job, Steve Martin has made himself into a genuine novelist who gives the art world over the last 20 years an exquisitely balanced sort of attention. An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin. Grand Central Publishing,295 pages, $26.99. By…
Read MoreJulie Taymor’s film version of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest is conclusive proof that just because we can do something with technology does not mean that we should. Less is often more, and one great text in hand is worth a dozen computers in the mix. And what was the director thinking with the racist portrayal…
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Critical Homage: Wilfrid Sheed — Farewell, Bittersweet Critic
Sensing the lonely importance of your review, you may lapse into muddleheaded kindness and a groping for a middle position that doesn’t exist. When this happens, no bribe has changed hands, no paper crown for Mr. Nice; you have sold out simply to your own weakness and the fundamental thinness of your vocation. — Wilfrid…
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