america adrift

Hi all.

This weekly column is an attempt at creating some sort of loose “index” that’ll make things a bit easier to fathom. I’ll try to put together a brief run-down of interesting matter floating around in the media, this with an emphasis on the literary. What follows is basically a short blurp on each item, with a link to the proper website for further reading. The length of this column will vary from week to week, depending on the amount of interesting stuff i stumble across. In addition, I will be posting other notes at a more irregular basis, including current events or the like, and I hereby encourage you to do the same. This is an excellent opportunity to create a communicative network for sharing information on American literature, culture and media-happenings in Denmark.

Over at The Edge of the American West, in a post dated April 10th, Eric Rauchway commemorates the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, on April 10th 1925. This novel, recognized by many as one of the great works of American fiction, was greeted with good reviews by happy reviewers, but Fitzgerald feared that the critics misunderstood his book. Rauchway discusses what the book is “really” about, and how. His conclusion is that the book deals with “the myth of the classless society? Certainly, but not in the boring way that Dreyser’s books are about that.”

3quarksdaily has an assortment of bit pieces up, linking to various newspapers and magazines. From the Boston Globe, an article discussing what may have led Henry David Thoreau to writing his Walden. Another piece, from Times Higher Education, highlights the debate between atheists and believers, with a focus on David Hume. This reminded me of the book I Don’t Believe in Atheists, by Chris Hedges, which argues that staunch atheists are, in their methods and arguments, no better than firm believers, and goes on to say that there are indeed atheist fundamentalists on the same, albeit less publicized, scale as there are Christian and Muslim fundamentalists.

At the New York Times’ book section, they have an article up about the increase in the demand for romance novels. The article looks to the current recession as a reason for this, and claims that in these times of hardship many people crave escapism. The same explanation has been put forth about the small bump the US Box Office experienced in early ’09. Besides romance novels, there has also been an increase in the sales of fantasy and sci-fi, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

I personally have not felt any increase in the interest for escapist/pulp literature, not even counting European literature (an exception to this would be the Swedish Stieg Larsson bestsellers, unread by me). As of now, my knowledge of romance novels is limited to the fact that Fabio (who was great in the movies Zoolander and Bubble Boy) is/was apparently the poster boy, and that is all I need to know. But the article makes one think, yet again, about the role of society in relation to literature, only this time not in relation to what kind of books are written but as to what kind of books the people want.

Is Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series such a big deal because people have no money?

In Danish news, Josh Bazell’s Beat the Reaper, which was published in the US earlier this year, has now been translated into Danish as ExGangster and receives a nice review from Politiken. Another newly translated book is Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road, popularly known as the best forgotten American novel. Remembered almost solely because other, more famous authors have championed his name over the years, Yates and his novel can finally be said to have entered the American literary canon. The translation is celebrated over at Information.

Daniel Logan