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"To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
e.e. cummings
"The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow - the
state in which people are so involved in an activity that
nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so
enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the
sheer sake of doing it."
Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
Introduction
A dilemma that has surely entered the mind of every aspiring writer as he struggles to make his way into print is whether to pursue the path of high art or bow to economic reality and concentrate on popular output. Does one produce an 'accessible' work which, if succesful, will invariably be sneered at by one's peers and the parishioners of 'quality' literature? Or ought one maintain one's integrity by scripting unashamedly literary works, and, despite having to resign oneself to years of handouts from welfare and one's partner until the 'big break', be content that the ink that pours from one's pen is not polluted by the influence of Grishamism and Steelism?
This rift has come to the fore of late, with Jonathan Franzen's less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his heavy-weight novel, 'The Corrections', being selected by Oprah Winfrey's book club and the host's subsequent decision to boot him off a forthcoming show. Franzen told the 'Oregonian' on October 12 that he saw himself as �solidly in the high-art literary tradition.� Ignoring the financial bounty that follows every book selected by the Queen of Daytime Chat Shows, the De-Lillo heir apparent has been whining about the Oprah-fication of his work of and grousing about the yawning �O� logo on his book.
It seems that the cultural split which keeps 'high-brow' and 'low-brow' on opposing sides of the battlefield, observing each other with both disdain and envy, is as wide and unassailable as ever. Jonathan Galassi, Mr. Franzen�s editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, said that on the road, the author was constantly confronted by fans who were dismayed that his book could be somehow associated with Ms. Winfrey. And even though Ms. Winfrey has picked books by Toni Morrison and Bernhard Schlink, there are those writers who, as 'New Republic' senior editor James Wood notes, believe �that if you were selected by Oprah, it probably meant that you hadn�t written a challenging and serious novel, at the deepest level.�
Virtually all the writers in this month's issue have had to take part in this tug-of-war between maintaining a high standard of output and gaining wider recognition, although a few have adopted cunning tactics to become well-known figures in their native countries while continuing to produce 'high brow' works. The French author, Michel Houellebecq, for example, who had been tipped to win this year's Prix Goncourt, one of the most prestigous literary prizes in Europe, doesn't let his standards slip on the page, but is more than heureux to make decidedly uncouth remarks which he knows will generate publicity for himself and his literary pourings. Hence, he'll frequently make statements such as "Islam is a dangerous religion" or give the impression that he sees nothing wrong with Thai women operating as prostitutes to service wealthy Western tourists. See this month's European edition of 1Lit to read the full story.
Last month's Nobel Prize winner, V. S. Naipaul has adopted a cunning tactic to draw publicity for himself and his literary pourings, which admittedly retain a literary grounding. There seems to have developed a farcical correlation between a book of Naipaul's about to be released and the author mouthing off against some prominent literary figure, nation or religion. As you will read in the news section below, his latest prouncements include accusing E. M. Forster and John Maynard Keynes of being "homosexual exploiters of the powerless".
Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of this month's featured book, 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience', didn't have to criticize any honored figures to become well-known. Despite having released a prodigious output of academic works on psychology for many years, he hit the jackpot when, to an audience of tens of millions on NBC, Miami Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson paid tribute to 'Flow' as the book that inspired him to win the 1993 Super Bowl. Suffice to say Csikszentmihaly promptly released a book 'Flow in Sports' and laughed all the way to the bank.
This issue of 1Lit has a review of his classic book 'Flow', as well as an excerpt from it. Being Fall, it is the awards' season and two of the three news items are about literary prizes, the Booker and the Nobel, both of which continue to cause controversy for some reason or other.
There's quite a bit more in this month's issue, so we hope we'll be able to provide you with at least an hour's worth of succulent reading. As usual, we welcome your correspondance, so if you have anything to say, good or bad, they don't hesitate to get in touch. If you have an opinion as to whether this ezine should pursue the literary high-ground, low-ground - or maybe attempt to straddle the two - then let us know. (Oh, and if you'd like us to focus on Baudelaire and Borges rather than Benchley and Bradford, please let us know how we should cover our bills!)
Thank you for being loyal to us: we recently discovered that, since launching over a year ago, we have only had about thirty people unsubscribing out of the hundreds of people on our mailing list.
See you again in the Christmas issue.
Best wishes,
Nadeem Azam
Editor
1Lit.com Ezine North America
CONTENTS:
1. News: Author row with Oprah, Booker, Nobel
3. Review: A Chicago Professor's guide to happiness
3. Excerpt: 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience'
4. Ideas: The Paradox of Our Time
6. Poetry: A Polish writer's tribute to books
7. Recommended websites: Where to buy books for Christmas
8. Competition: Monthly Reader's Prize-draw
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============ NEWS ============
Author Seeks Oprah's Forgiveness for Book Club Snub
In the latest chapter of a dispute that has escalated into a national literary furor, Chicago-born author Jonathan Franzen said Monday that he had been "ungracious" to question his inclusion in Oprah Winfrey's popular book club and that he had sent an e-mail to the TV talk show host asking her forgiveness.
Franzen, 42, a native of Western Springs, said he sent an e-mail to Winfrey on Monday but has received no reply. A spokeswoman for Winfrey said the talk show host has no plans to reconsider her cancellation of a show featuring Franzen.
The author found himself in the center of a flap when he expressed concern that his National Book Award-nominated 'The Corrections' would bear the book club logo, a stamp that has been the equivalent of winning the lottery for many authors. In interviews after his selection was announced, Franzen wondered whether his image as a literary author would be tainted by his association with readers who watch daytime talk shows.
The subsequent debate over so-called high and low literature--and the perceived snub of a popular audience--has produced a torrent of comment about Franzen, who has been deemed an ungrateful snob by some and a defender of literary purity by others. It also has increased sales of his book. An additional half-million copies had been rushed into print by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux in anticipation of increased readership from the Winfrey pick, and the subsequent controversy has kept the title in the headlines.
"I'm a Midwesterner and I'm eager to please," Franzen said by phone Monday from his New York apartment, explaining how he came to utter disparaging remarks about Winfrey's book club during a three-week nationwide book tour that ended last week.
Independent booksellers often have "issues" with the corporatization of the literary world implied by the book club, Franzen said, and he was in one such bookstore when he first expressed "ambivalence" about the Winfrey pick.
"When I'm in England, I find myself speaking with an English accent. When I'm with an independent bookseller, I find myself giving voice to those reservations about some of the books she [Winfrey] has selected.
"I was subsequently horrified because I believe it's important to be gracious and to mind my manners," he added.
Informed of Franzen's anti-book club remarks, Winfrey canceled a show featuring Franzen having dinner with her and fans, a normal part of the book club regimen.
Franzen, who said he does not own a television set, blamed his "eager stupidity as a Midwesterner" for not realizing his remarks might be misconstrued.
"To find myself identified with an arrogant New York literary contingent makes me feel very misunderstood," he said.
Links: Oprah - Read more about 'The Corrections' and discuss it in the forum
Arizona Republic - Interview with Jonathan Franzen
New York-based Author Wins Booker Prize
Australian writer Peter Carey has won this year's prestigious Booker Prize for his novel 'True History Of The Kelly Gang'.
The winner of one of the world's leading literary prizes was announced at a Gala ceremony in London on October 17.
Carey won the prestigious prize in 1988 for 'Oscar and Lucinda' and the New York-based author was favorite with the bookies to win this year's award. Ian McEwan's novel 'Atonement' had also been hotly tipped to take the prize.
Carey, 58, is only the second writer in the Booker's 32-year history, after J. M. Coetzee, to win twice. McEwan, also a previous winner, had the handicap - in a contest preoccupied both with balance and with literary jealousies - of having taken it a mere three years ago with his book Amsterdam.
Carey's victory in 1988 with Oscar and Lucinda was thought distant enough in time to be less of a handicap.
The book is a fictional account of Australia's infamous anti-hero, Ned Kelly who was an orphan, horse thief, farmer, bush ranger, bank robber, police killer and finally Australia's mythical hero figure.
Carey has acknowledged that many Australians still see him as a murderous psychopath. But he sees Kelly not as a Robin Hood or Jesse James but as the Thomas Jefferson of Australia. He was inspired by Kelly's 56-page Jerilderie letter, written to justify one of his bank robberies. This said: "If my lips taught the public that men are made mad by bad treatment, then my life will not have been thrown away."
The five judges were understood to have felt that both Carey's book and 'Atonement' were first rank novels in a neck and neck struggle. But they saw flaws in McEwan's writing, while Carey's was more "polished and right".
Despite his past win Carey said he was surprised at winning again but "delighted". He told reporters: "I really thought I was beyond it, if I won it I would be fine, and if I didn't win it I would be fine. But I'm astonished to find I'm bursting with adrenaline and feeling like it never happened and here I am feeling like I've been run over by a truck."
He said he was a good friend and admirer of Ian McEwan and they had exchanged e-mails to set a wager. "It was Ian that said whoever wins buys the other a splendid meal. I think it should be in New York because the restaurants there are suffering. We'll have good wine."
Links: Amazon - Booker Prize short-lists from 1969 to present day Booker Prize - official site
Indians Not Intellectual Enough 40 Years Ago: Naipaul
Nobel literature prize winner V. S. Naipaul has provoked yet another row by claiming that 40 years ago people in India were not intellectual enough to read his books.
Naipaul told an audience at the opening of Cheltenham literature festival in England last month that he believed he had helped to educate Indians.
"The trouble with people like me writing about societies where there is no intellectual life is that if you write about it, people are angry. If they read the book, which in most cases they don't, they want approval. Now India has improved, the books have been accepted," he said.
"Forty years ago in India people were living in ritual. This is one of the things I have helped India with," the 69-year-old novelist said during his first public appearance since winning the $1,000,000 Nobel prize.
Naipaul has virulently attacked Islam many times, comparing the "calamitous effect" of the religion with colonialism.
The novelist, who was born in Trinidad of Indian parentage, in an interview with Literary Review earlier this year, alleged that British novelists E. M. Forster and John Maynard Keynes were "homosexual exploiters of the powerless".
He described Forster's novel 'A Passage to India' as "rubbish".
In July last year, he described British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a "cultural philistine" and a champion of "an aggressively plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian".
Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize on October 11. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said he bagged the award "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories".
Links: About.com - Selected sites about Naipaul Nobel - Swedish Academy press release to announce Naipaul winning the literary prize
============= BOOK REVIEW =============
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
$14
review by Asad Yawar
With the gradual dissolution of ideals such as community and religion, recent years have seen a plethora of volumes appear on the shelves of libraries and bookstores which promise the reader the key to a successful and happy life, or at least offer the ability to ride the wave of existential horror. The vast majority have succeeded in nothing but creating a new addiction - that to the literary equivalent of cocaine - to feed.
Csikzentmihalyi's tome offers something substantially different. It seeks almost at once to distance itself from the accoutrements of the genre of popular psychology, instead looking to root itself within broadly social scientific parameters. The author aims to set out what he terms "the conditions for optimal experience", the key to which is a phenomenon loosely called "flow": "a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to complete absorption in activity". Flow activities are distinguished by the fact that they transform the self by making it more complex, engaging the self through the correct matching of challenge and skill. Through this, the ordering of consciousness, and therefore a high degree of personal satisfaction, can be attained.
The most interesting element of this theory is the obligation to "lose oneself in an activity that offers no rewards outside the interaction itself". To anyone with a vague knowledge of eastern religions (and indeed the roots of Christian spirituality), this has obvious parallels with yogic and Sufi practices in which the disciple spends many hours every week in meditation, with similar results for the consciousness. Csikzentmihalyi, who is alert as any in picking up on this, might be thought of as trying to formulate a secular spirituality through which those without religion can also seek to transcend themselves.
However, while Csikzentmihalyi's documentation of flow experiences is sound, he never really fully explains on what one should invest psychic energy, concluding: "Because there is no absolute certainty to which to turn, each person must discover ultimate purpose on his or her own." Given that the chances of this happening are infinitesimal and the determination of "ultimate purpose" is as capricious as the history of humanity, what is to stop the more outlandish of us experiencing flow in the way of Eichmann, whose concentrated devotion to directing people to the gas chambers was legendary? Csikzentmihalyi trusts in the emergence of some kind of new faith, as yet undefined, but one feels his attention would have been better directed at how religion, which for thousands of years has been the shaper of so much of human consciousness, might offer some solutions.
Links: DesignHappy.com - colourful and fun guide to the concept of 'Flow'
Google.com - Search results for "Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi"
=======
EXCERPT =======
Flow
Drift on over to this page to read 1Lit's extract from Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi's 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience'.
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======= IDEAS =======
The Paradox of Our Time
Click here to have a look at this piece of writing and then read Barbara Mikkelson's insight into it below.
In May 1998, Jeff Dickson wrote and posted 'The Paradox of Our Time' to his Hacks-R-Us online forum. He didn't realize his piece would achieve widespread Internet fame, and he has since seen his work attributed to comedian George Carlin, an unnamed Columbine High School student, and that most prolific of scribes, Anonymous.
George Carlin emphatically denies he had had anything to do with 'Paradox,' a piece he refers to as "a sappy load of s**t." His comments about being associated with this essay can be found at his website.
We are drawn to pieces such as 'The Paradox of Our Time' because they summarize all the problems of modern society into a neat laundry list of "What Has Gone Wrong" while presenting possible solutions by way of juxtaposition. The pairing of "We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values," for example, implies that increased affluence is responsible for a decline in morality and carries the underlying implication that if we turn our backs on the almighty dollar, our kids will no longer murder one another.
Clear-cut cause-and-effect pairings provide far more comfort than does accepting the harsh reality that we live in a world of no assurances at all, a world where bad things can happen at any moment, to anyone, and for no discernable (and thus no preventable) reason. Our ancestors coped with that feeling of powerlessness by inventing myths about petty, lust-filled, vengeful gods who -- even if they were capricious in their actions and insensible to the human misery their warring caused -- were at least tangible entities that could be pointed to as the cause of otherwise unfathomable catastrophes. Our sophistication has cost us that, leaving us vulnerable to a sense of a world careening out of control.
======= POETRY =======
It's been delayed by a couple of issues, but here we finally present Czeslaw Milosz's 'And Yet the Books'. Milosz was censored by both the Nazis and Polish Communinists, and in this work he asserts that ideas remain even if books are burned.
And Yet the Books
by Czeslaw Milosz
And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
"We are," they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
Milosz was born in 1911 in Lithuania. He lived and published his first works in Poland in the 1930s, during the Nazi occupation. From the end of World War II until 1951, Milosz served in Washington, D.C., as a Polish diplomat. Disillusioned with the Polish government, Milosz defected to the West and spent a decade in Paris working as a freelance writer. In 1961, he joined the University of California as a lecturer in Polish literature. His books were banned in Poland until 1980, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
Our winner this month is Dan Ebdon from Michigan.
He'll receive the top ten bestsellers at Amazon.
========== RECOMMENDED WEBSITES ============
With Yuletide slipping closer by the day, we thought you might have started thinking about which presents to buy. Being bibliophiles ourselves, we like to encourage young and old alike to take up the reading habit and therefore prefer to give books whenever possible. This month we are reviewing three online bookstores, one or other of which is bound to have the title(s) you are looking for.
Amazon
Although no longer just a bookstore, books are still what Jeff Bezos' company is best known for. They have recently stolen a march on their rivals by adding a feature that allows you to look at the actual pages in thousands of books. You can flip through the book and look at the table of contents, the full index, sample interior pages, and the back cover. The only downside to Amazon is the increasingly-cluttered nature of the site as the company attempts to flog everything from tableware to tents in its desperate surge to reach profitability.
If you'd like to buy an original Christmas gift for a bookworm, you might like to visit Alibris, which is the leading online marketplace in North America for
out-of-print, used, foreign language, and collectible books. We found several titles that we hadn't been able to get hold of in any library, offline or online bookstore. The site is easy to use with a built in search tool to find books from certain years, editions, authors, titles and conditions.
Alibris - millions of books, manuscripts, maps, photos, prints, and autographs
Indigo (formerly Chapters)
Indigo was created in 1996 by and for booklovers, and merged with Chapters Inc. in August this year to become Canada�s largest books retail chain. The revamped website is far easier on the eye than the gargantuan Amazon and each section is simply and clearly labelled. Prices, however, tend to a touch higher than their American rivals and so you'll probably only find it worthwhile to use Indigo for deliveries to Canadian addresses.
If you have friends and relatives in Europe who you'd like to send books to for Christmas, you'll find it cheaper to use an online bookseller based in Europe. See this month's European edition of 1Lit for recommendations.
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IN THE
CHRISTMAS ISSUE OF 1LIT, NORTH AMERICAN EDITION OUT ON DECEMBER 1
the Plath-Hughes roadshow goes on...
article by writer who explains his hatred of Ted Hughes
exclusive 1Lit pictures of Plath's controversial grave
win postcards from England
the best online stores for last-minute Christmas shopping
and lots more in the ezine to cosy up to this winter
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