Videos! Atwood - Vidal - Doctrow - Beloved - Iranians - Toot tooting Tudors - East of Eden

 Okay, bring out the tar and the feathers. I like Margaret Atwood's Madd Addam trilogy more than I do The Handmaiden's Tale.

 

Morrison's Beloved has too many reasons to read it, but if you have not then made this will clinch the deal.

Also related to Toni Morrison: Namwali Serpell and Dionne Custer Edwards on Toni Morrison’s Sula. I do not know if Sula gets the same attention as Beloved, and I have the sense that it does get anywhere near the attention of Song of Solomon, but it does have going for it the relationship between two women and their lives in a community. Understand that I have not read all of Morrison's novels, there may be a bad one but not in those I have read. Sula is one I have read. (The question of a bad novel is two-fold: is it a bad novel or is it a lesser work by Morrison? The first implies the lack of talent; the latter supposes less effort by Morriso in using her talent. I would give much to write what others might call a mediocre Morrison novel.) 

Gore Vidal in his grumpy glory:

 I have read only one of Deborah Levy's short stories, not any of her novels, and that I regret. The short story knocked me down.

 Reading Doctorow, like reading Gore Vidal, probably dates me. I will admit that the former is probably a better novelist than Vidal, with a reservation for Duluth. Popular, quality novelists who should not be allowed to just fade away. I will hold Doctorow's Ragtime against anything written by John Updike. Vidal's essays hold up in my mind better than his fiction.

 

 

Anne Lamott is someone I like listening to about writing:

 I have meant to read J.G. Ballard and Angela Carter; maybe I will have the time.

Yes, there are Iranian writers. They might even survive Trump's attack on Iranian civilization as well as the Revolutionary Guards..

 

 

Toot tooting Tudors:

I read Steinbeck's East of Eden before I read anything else of his. College, I think. My memory is it was a bit ramshackle in plot. That might have more to do with my having seen the movie version (which seems to have gone missing the past 30 years) and the TV version with the Bottoms brothers (which disappeared almost immediately). The following discussion puts the novel into order for me. I suppose I should read it again, but damn where do I find the time? 

I will close out with an article rather than a video: H.P. Lovecraft: Haunted by History. A good overview of the writer who scared me as a teenager.

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