Spring 2006 Quarterly Conversation

The Quarterly Conversation for Spring 2006 is here. TOC:

Essays

Breaking the Code
by Daniel Green
"Steven Pinker comes close to suggesting that any art that does not confirm the hypothesis that art originates in other human attributes–adaptations that helped us to navigate and control what Pinker and the evolutionary psychologists he cites like to call our “ancestral environment”–is perforce bad and irresponsible art. But how could this be? Why should otherwise serious and creative works and art or literature be disparaged because they allegedly do not reflect the use of faculties developed to confront conditions our ancestors confronted hundreds of thousands of years ago?"

Spring Books
By Dan Wickett
Dan breaks down over 30 forthcoming releases that you’re going to want to read.

Reviews

The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
Review by Dave Munger
"Current evidence that human activity is causing global warming at unprecedented rates is considerably stronger than the 1985 evidence that led to the Montreal Protocol. So why hasn’t authoritative global action been taken to limit climate change? If action is to be taken, what will be needed is clear, forceful evidence that the cure for global warming isn’t worse than the disease. Tim Flannery’s new book, The Weather Makers, may be just the evidence the world needs."

Bouvard and Pecuchet by Gustave Flaubert
Review by Derik Badman
"Gustave Flaubert’s last unfinished novel Bouvard and Pecuchet is without question his masterpiece, even in its unfinished state, towering above the more famous, but less enjoyable, Madame Bovary. This new translation is more readable, less stilted, and a bit more concise in syntax than Penguin’s. With an excellent introduction by Mark Polizzotti and a preface by Raymond Queneau, as well as additional materials related to the unfinished portions of the novel, this is the edition to read."

Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer
Review by Megan Keane
"After fleeing Canada for Paris in 1999, crime reporter Jeremy Mercer has no clear idea of where to go with his life.  A casual stop at the legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookstore proves to be the beginning of a life-changing experience, which Mercer documents in Time Was Soft There."

Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Review by Elizabeth Wadell
"Reviewers from Salon, The Guardian (London), and The New York Times critiqued Lapcharoensap for clumsy or heavy-handed criticism of America. Yet although many things about Sightseeing (including its title) seem to invite such a reading from Western audiences, it is significant that the titular sightseers are actually two Thais exploring their country. Reading the stories a year after the tsunami, the instances of culture clash come across as, first and foremost, explorations of character, not political critique."

A Writer at War by Vasily Grossman
Review by Brendan Wolfe
"A Writer at War is an important book because it provides a piercing look into the author of Life and Fate, a 1960 novel about the siege of Stalingrad and an undisputed masterpiece of 20th-century Russian literature. But, perhaps more importantly, it’s important for the necessary emphasis it places on the barbarity of the Eastern Front. We Americans know or care little about this part of the Second World War. It exists for us as a vague threat hurled by Colonel Klink at Sergeant Schultz, not as the venue for perhaps the bloodiest battle in human history."

Insect Dreams by Marc Estrin
Review by Matthew Tiffany
"Estrin’s first novel (recently re-released by Unbridled Books), starts from a promising seed: Gregor Samsa did not die near the end of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis but instead lives, as a beetle, with a side-show of human oddities. He passes his days reading extensively and then giving lectures on Spengler and Einstein. A series of adventures leads Samsa into America and the midst of FDR’s administration, where he becomes an "Entomological Consultant,"  lives in the White House kitchen, and gets motherly attention from Eleanor. But is it a worthy successor to Kafka’s masterpiece?"

Correction by Thomas Bernhard
Review by David Sepanik
"Bernhard’s predominant concern is the subordination of reality to language. The choice of Wittgenstein, the great language philosopher, as inspiration for the book is revealing because in Correction the process of language overwhelms lived existence. It subsumes even death, becoming the overriding end unto itself. Bernhard’s world is one that rejects the reality of any truth that exists beyond the constructions of language."

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders
Review by Barrett Hathcock
"Part of the strength of Saunders’s other stories is that they are recognizably absurdist. Even though we don’t work in, say a pre-historic exhibit in some theme park, if we did it would make a certain bit of sick corporate sense if we had to fax in a Daily Partner Performance Evaluation Form. Saunders’s earlier stories are funny in a way that both makes you shoot milk out your nose and recognize the intractable absurdity of your own modern life. But where satire always brings a lesson in its teeth–how absurdly trapped you are in your absurd career! ha ha!–a political allegory like Phil forces the slobbery moral right into your lap. "

Contributor Notes

You Might Also Like:

More from Conversational Reading:

1. W06: The Quarterly Conversation The Winter 2006 edition of The Quarterly Conversation is now online. Here’s the TOC: 1. Table of Contents2. Essay: Creative Oppositions: The Poetry of Frank...
2. W06: The Quarterly Conversation The Winter 2006 edition of The Quarterly Conversation is now online. Here’s the TOC: 1. Table of Contents2. Essay: Creative Oppositions: The Poetry of Frank...
3. Best American Short Stories 2006 The incomparable Dan Wickett provides some info on an author and a journal that you should be reading. First the author: Benjamin Percy: Benjamin has...
4. The Quarterly Conversation Now available is the first "issue" of The Quarterly Conversation. It includes book reviews (Devil Talk, The Breaking Point, Hardboiled & Hard Luck, and A...
5. Anticipated Books of 2006 Max is on fire this week. A great list of books you’ll want to read this year. ...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.