Our contributors elsewhere

FSG’s fall catalog, which just arrived in the mail, is accompanied by a separately printed pamphlet announcing The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, to appear in October, and rightly hailed by FSG as “an event in American letters.” A new story by Davis, called “The Landing,” will appear in our upcoming issue. In the meantime, read Davis’s tribute to Marcel Proust, from PA 2: Home and Away, or check out PA 7: World Voices, to see how Jonathan Franzen approaches the question “Does Writing Change Anything?” through two of Davis’s stories. (You can also watch Davis read Borges on PEN's YouTube channel.)

Other happy inclusions in the FSG catalog: If I Were Another, a book of poems by Mahmoud Darwish translated by Fady Joudah (both Darwish and Joudah appear in PA 9: Checkpoints), and Interesting Times, a collection of essays by George Packer (another Checkpoints contributor).

Lastly, “Teenager,” by Wislawa Szymborska, is the second in the new online series from Granta “showcasing important contemporary poets.” A portion of Szymborska’s Nonrequired Reading ran in PA 5: Silences.

(Drawing above of Lydia Davis by Tony Millionaire; taken from this interview of Davis by Sarah Manguso, conducted for The Believer.)

New Proust

"It is surprising but true: a polished, mature work by Marcel Proust that is unavailable in English translation-- until now."

So reads the book description for The Lemoine Affair, the newly available novella pointed out by Chad Post over at Three Percent. It will be published by Melville House as part of their wonderful "Art of the Novella" series:

In this overlooked comedic gem based on a true story, the author considered one of the most important writers of the twentieth century tells the tale of a con artist who claimed he could manufacture diamonds, with each chapter of the tale written in the style of a different French writer. This delicious spoof of Balzac, Flaubert, Chateaubriand and others is presented in a sparkling, nuanced translation by the award-winning Charlotte Mandell.

(Mandell, by the way, has a detailed homepage over at PEN.org, one of many great translators in PEN's directory.)

This also gives me an excuse to link to Marilynne Robinson's piece on Proust from PEN America 2. Robinson begins by recalling the time her teacher, John Hawkes, called a paragraph of hers "Proustian":

He did this to shelter it from the criticisms of my fellow students, who were aflame then with a stern undergraduate passion for truth-telling, for tearing away veils and dispelling illusions. I was as impressed by this project as anyone, and I made certain poor attempts at it, which the formidable Mr. Hawkes discouraged by invoking this great name to approve one straying memory of my primordial Idaho.

PEN America 8 will include some remarks by Robinson on her interest in Iowan history-- which inspired not only Gilead, but also her upcoming novel, Home.

(The image aboves comes from the homepage for The Proust Society of America, "a permanent program of The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction.")

A Few Friday Notes

The Chinese government finally frees Ven. Ngawang Phulchung (left), one of the leaders of the Drepung printing group, a dissident Tibetan publishing collective, and an Honorary Member of PEN American Center.

Saadi Youssef eulogizes fellow Iraqi poet Sargon Boulos (in Laila Lalami’s translation): “He stood against occupation because the poet, by necessity, stands against occupation.”

Those in NYC, don’t forget: Grace Paley tribute this Tuesday, in the Great Hall at Cooper Union.

And next Tuesday (11/13): M Mark introduces PEN America contributor Sarah Messer befor a reading at NYPL. Stellar Kim and Beth Woodcome will also be reading.

More amusing Proust.

Michael Ondaatje; Davis on Proust; "Urban Virgins"

Amitava Kumar describes Michael Ondaatje’s visit to Vassar, where he delivered the annual William Gifford lecture and told students, “What I love about English is that it is revived every fifty years by someone who is not English”—for example, G.V. Desani, with his novel All About H. Haterr. Also check out Ondaatje’s conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in PEN America 7.

This Space calls attention to The Cahiers Series from Sylph Editions, the fifth installment of which will have three linked pieces by Lydia Davis.

First is 'A Proust Alphabet', which gives an account of several words and issues of particular interest, encountered during the author’s recent translating of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. There follows a short article on the French thinker and novelist Maurice Blanchot, entitled 'The Problem in Summarising Blanchot'. Finally comes a series of dreams and dreamlike moments, recounted in 'Swimming in Egypt: Dreams while Awake and Asleep'. The cahier is accompanied by photographs by Ornan Rotem.

The cahier comes out in a month; in the meantime, you can read Davis’s thoughts on Proust in PEN America 2.

Lastly, as if the new Latin America issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review was not impressive enough on its own, they have also created some fanastic web features, like this interactive map which links to various pieces from the issue-- or this collection of photographs and poetry:

“Urban Virgins” shows a series of paintings by Ana de Orbegoso paired with poems by Odi Gonzales. De Orbegoso has created 5′ tall wearable Spanish paintings of saints and virgins that have been mashed up with photographs of contemporary Peruvian women. Then she has people walk around Cusco, Peru in these costumes, bringing art to the streets.

(And speaking of Latin America, here’s yet another November event: The News from Latin America, hosted by the Overseas Press Club and the National Book Critics Circle, featuring Francisco Goldman, George de Lama, and Peter Kinoy, and hosted by Calvin Sims.)

Online Gass

Courtesy of the Literary Saloon, news that William H. Gass has won the St. Louis Literary Award, and, on the occasion, has been profiled in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, under this lovely headline: "In the heart of the country, an honor for Bill Gass."

I thought of that article yesterday when I read, over at Conversational Reading, about Tunneling, an online archive and directory of Gass's work with links to everything available online. Stephen Schenkenberg, the editor of St. Louis Magazine, is behind the project.

All of this sent me back to two pieces by Gass that appeared in PEN America: the first, "Toward Total Recall" is a tribute to Marcel Proust, from our second issue; the second, "Lifetimes Out of Moments," is a tribute to Gertrude Stein, from PEN America 5: Silences.

Here's the end of Gass's beguiling tribute to Stein:

The human mind makes lifetimes out of moments, particulars into generalities, quirks into characters. The human mind can entice human nature into Elysium; though it can do nothing with the quaint, for, as Stein said, quaint ain’t . . . yet we are all witness to that transformation, when the human mind sips the tea and tastes the biscuit, to turn the simple offer: Have some? into a summation; for we’ve seen how a paltry pun, a phrase, those perceptions personal to style, how the right writing can drag daily life in its drudgery and exhilaration, with its restless elevators, its solemn ceremonies, from one present tense to another and another and another—for today my little dog did deign to know me, and though I was not a warrior returning in rags, I was a warrior returning in rags; a saucer enabled my cup to warm my fingers, and I felt an old friend on the lip of a story, for Gertrude Stein, as so often, was right: Every rhyme in Mother Goose is still well with us, and so, for that matter, is the Mother Goose of Montparnasse.

Read the rest here. And the tribute to Proust here.

Also, Chekhov's Mistress praises Gass's translations of Rilke, and Stephen Schenkenberg reads The Tunnel. Above, an illustration of Gass by Charles Burns for The Believer.

Wednesday Miscellany: Proust, etc.

Edmund White lists five novels “reviewers should have in their libraries” for the “Critical Library" series over at the NBCC blog. Among them: In Search of Lost Time, which he has read thrice (!), the first time in high school (!, again). For more of White's thoughts on Proust, check out PEN America 2: Home & Away, and his piece, “The Consolations of Art”:

Of course Proust is also popular because he wrote about glamour, rich people, nobles, artists. And he wrote about love. It doesn’t seem to matter that he came to despise love, that he exploded it, reduced it to its shabbiest, most mechanical, even hydraulic terms. By which I mean he not only demystified love, he also dehumanized it, turning it into something merely Pavlovian. The love Swann feels for Odette is in no way a tribute to her charms or her soul.

Seems a bit less cheery than Alain de Botton's version. (Among the other writers who consider Proust in PEN America 2: Marilynne Robinson, Lydia Davis, Nadine Gordimer... check it out. And for a lighter-- and very amusing-- take on reading Proust, try Barnaby Sandwich.)

That discussion of “the place of the political in poetry” that Ted Genoways called for last week-- and which is mentioned below-- elicited some interesting remarks, both at the VQR blog and at The Chronicle of Higher Education. As part of the discussion, Don Share, senior editor of Poetry, called attention to this piece by Nathaniel Fick about “recent war poetry.”

As others have noted, the 2007 MacArthur “Genius” Grants were announced this week, and three members of PEN were among the recipients: fiction writer Stuart Dybek, playwright Lynn Nottage, and editor Peter Cole.

The New York Times ran a profile yesterday of “two leading Brazilian novelists of Amazon themes”: Márcio Souza and Milton Hatoum.

Mid-day update: PEN and The Campaign for Reader Privacy applaud "the introduction today of legislation to safeguard the privacy of ordinary Americans and curb the FBI’s abuse of the National Security Letter power granted under the USA Patriot Act." Read more.