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Cloud Cartography: On Tubes by Andrew Blum
A review of Tubes: A Journey to the Centre of the Internet (Ecco, 2012), by Andrew Blum When U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, speaking in opposition to net neutrality in June 2006, infamously described the Internet as “a series of tubes,” he was ridiculed for being out of touch with technology. The phrase was quickly absorbed into the…
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Not Himself: On Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary
A review of Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary (Yale, 2012), translated by Lillian Vallee. The Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz arrived in Buenos Aires in August of 1939 on the maiden voyage of the trans-Atlantic liner Chrobry. He had been able to use his minor notoriety as an avant-garde writer in Poland to receive a free ticket on the…
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Yerevan, Armenia: World Book Capital
When Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2010, reviews in the Globe and Mail and the National Post commented at length about the beautiful book produced by Nova Scotia’s Gaspereau Press, where books are printed by hand, carefully bound, and often include letter-pressed dust jackets and patterned end papers. These volumes…
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Suicide as a Sort of Present: The Cult of DFW
A review of Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, by D. T. Max (Viking, 2012). For the flawless. [Editor’s note: Hover over the footnotes to read them, or scroll to the bottom of the essay.] You are, unfortunately, a scholar1 of the works of the late David Foster Wallace…
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An infinite number of writing tips: A review of Monkeys with Typewriters
Reviewed in this essay: Monkeys with Typewriters, Scarlett Thomas, Canongate, 2012 Those who can, write; those who can’t, write how-to-write manuals. Of the thousands of fiction and screenwriting how-to books out there, far too few are by published or produced writers. In fact, this former wannabe screenwriter can’t think of a single one. Until now.
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CanLit Canon Review #11: W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing the books that shaped this country. Published in 1947, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind arrived six years after As For Me and My House, Sinclair Ross’s Prairie-based depression trigger, and it has the same message as its predecessor:…
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An ambitious take on human nature: Edward O. Wilson’s The Social Conquest of Earth
Reviewed in this essay: The Social Conquest of Earth, by Edward O. Wilson. Liveright, 2012. The first scientific controversy to capture the mind of the young Edward O. Wilson was the so-called Lysenko affair. Wilson, 14 at the time, wrote an enthusiastic essay about the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko, a Stalinist protégé who advocated the now…
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Eerily well read: 5 lit-inspired Halloween costumes
What holiday could be a better match for the bookish among us than one that ushers in bags of candy and a temporary belief that anything, no matter how otherworldly, is possible? Halloween practically cries out for literature themed costumes, but in case you need a little help this year, try some of Chirograph’s suggestions.…
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Total humanity: A review of Mad Hope
Reviewed in this essay: Mad Hope by Heather Birrell. Coach House Books, 2012. Mad Hope, by Toronto writer Heather Birrell, is a collection of 11 short stories that gives the unshakable sense that life, death, love, and grief are being felt and experienced at the highest pitch, all around you. From family relationships, to lovers’…
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TRB Podcast: Lynn Coady and The Antagonist on the Eh List
On May 17, the Toronto Public Library invited Lynn Coady to speak at the Barbara Frum Branch as part of the 2012 eh List Author Series, which highlights Canadian writers. Reading from her novel The Antagonist, Coady raises questions regarding who has the right to tell stories and considers the ethics of writing a life. Listen…
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On Novels of Ideas: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
Michael Da Silva takes a pause from his account of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s list of the best novel of ideas to examine her most recent novel.
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Visions of Conservative Triumph: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises
Reviewed in this essay: The Dark Knight Rises, directed by Christopher Nolan. Running Time: 164 minutes. With a quarter of a billion dollar budget, nearly three hours of screen time, and creative carte blanche, one could not but hope for a masterpiece from Christopher Nolan’s long awaited The Dark Knight Rises. One is sad to…