December 2005
5 posts
1 tag
Favorite Sentences of 2005
Last year I began what I hope will become a tradition of posting my favorite sentences of the year. I’m happy to say that The Believer will be publishing ten of my favorites from 2005 in its February 2006 issue. Here are some others:
From 2005 Books
:
25. “We shall not go into his character, because the moment one says something about a writer all other writers take offense.”...
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Stanley Fogel on William Gass
I’m late turning both of our attention to the Summer 2005 “Review of Contemporary Fiction,” which includes a 35-page essay by Stanley Fogel on the work of William Gass. “Performance is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Gass’s oeuvre,” Fogel rightly puts it.
“Pithy or sprawling, it is always an architectonic marvel. Its impact is augmented,...
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Nice Call
I just stumbled upon this May 1928 review of “Ulysses” in The New York Times. A few paragraphs in:
“Before proceeding with a brief analysis of ‘Ulysses,’ and a comment on its construction and content, I wish to characterize it. ‘Ulysses’ is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the twentieth century. It will...
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Noah's New One
Noah Baumbach’s family-divorce movie “The Squid and the Whale” finally arrived in Madison, and I was able to catch it this afternoon. While “Kicking and Screaming” (his debut and a favorite of mine) and “Mr. Jealousy” (much improved, in my mind, by a second viewing last week) were primarily comedies with some smart strains of sadness playing here and...
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Gass in the BookForum
The Dec/Jan 2006 BOOKFORUM arrived in today’s mail, and it includes a delightful and heady essay by William H. Gass called “The Sentence Seeks Its Form: What can we do to find out how writing is written?” A few quotes:
“The sentence, seeking its form, must pass through the belly and bowel without irritation, as though it belonged in that dim hallway, as though it was...