March 19: All Literature Edition

A very interesting literary fuss in progress, between Cameroonian novelist Leonora Miano and her U.S. publisher, the University of Nebraska Press, which added a Foreword to the translation of her novel Dark Heart of the Night that she takes grave exception to. Michael Orthofer at The Complete Review, to whom Miano sent her complaint, judiciously assesses the situation (and praises the novel):

http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/201003b.htm#rb4

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/frafrica/mianol.htm

One of the telling aspects of this feud is that Miano did not send her detailed and thoughtful letter to the Times Literary Supplement (say), but to Orthofer -- a sign of how the literary blogosphere has gained in influence. Her instinct was correct: News of the disagreement has spread quickly across the Web because The Complete Review is (rightly) one of the most respected book sites.

At The Millions, Emily St. John Mandel posts an excellent essay on the theme of "disappearance" in recent literature:

http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/through-the-looking-glass-notes-on-disappearance.html

English musician and political activist Billy Bragg enjoys books that grapple intelligently with the meaning of "Englishness":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/oct/18/top10s.englishness

The Victorian Geek looks at one of Anthony Trollope's lesser-known efforts among his 48 novels, Lady Anna:

http://blog.catherinepope.co.uk/2010/03/17/lady-anna-by-anthony-trollope-1874/

Tom Cunliffe at A Common Reader toots his trumpet for the neglected Carpathian novelist Gregor Von Rezzori:

http://acommonreader.org/?p=302

Contributors at The Second Pass likewise get excited about deserving but under-read books:

http://thesecondpass.com/?p=4034

Post St. Patrick's Day, but the celebration of Irish literature never ends: Omnivoracious has posted a nice video of a conversation over beers with award-winning Irish novelist Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin). Complete with background noise -- hey, it's a pub!

http://www.omnivoracious.com/2010/03/lifting-a-pint-with-colum-mccann.html

If your taste runs to "alternative Irish classics," you might want to check out these authors, of whom Flann O'Brien and Gene Kerrigan are familiar to me, Julian Gough and Phillip O’Ceallaigh not:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-17/alternative-irish-classics/

Literary critic Terry Eagleton (himself Irish) is interviewed by Jonathan Derbyshire (not, as I at first misread, his political opposite number John Derbyshire) at The New Statesman:

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/03/interview-hitchens-nostalgia

Every Friday a bunch of crime fiction bloggers around the Web resuscitate forgotten and semi-remembered titles in their field. This week, The Rap Sheet discusses a reprint of Norbert Davis's comic pulp stories about detective Max Latin:

http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2010/03/book-you-have-to-read-adventures-of-max.html

A fine guide to the pulp detectives of that era which I just finished reading is Ron Goulart's The Dime Detectives.

Among notables born on this date are explorers David Livingstone and Richard Francis Burton, novelists Tobias Smollett and Philip Roth, poet William Allingham, theologian Hans Kung, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, statesman William Jennings Bryan, Plymouth Colony Governor and diarist William Bradford, Western artist Charles Marion Russell, Western lawman Wyatt Earp, painter Josef Albers, composer Max Reger, pianist Dinu Lipatti, pop singer Ruth Pointer, film producer Harvey Weinstein, film director Bigas Luna, and actors Louis Hayward, Bruce Willis, Patrick McGoohan, and Glenn Close.

The 19th century Irish poet and diarist William Allingham is one of those"minor writers" (not my favorite phrase) who repays acquaintance in a charming way. Such a well-known anthology piece as "The Faeries" is remarkable not simply for encapsulating leprechaun myths, but for its infectious lilt:

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
If any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!