Books: Hornby, D. Foster Wallace on the Borges bio, ....

Thought I'd post this Salon link since Joel said he was thinking of going to see Hornby read in NYC this week:

"The Polysyllabic Spree" by Nick Hornby
From the author of "High Fidelity," a delightful celebration of the joys of reading that reminds us why most literary criticism is so bad.
By Charles Taylor

That's a review of a collection of Hornby's essays from The Believer. I previously blogged The Believer here, in particular that tremendously fascinating interview with ?love. (I'm just realizing now the interviewer there was Toure! Saw him read from Soul City--and bought a copy of The Portable Promised Land--at Cody's in Berkeley back in Oct.)

Some more literature links: going through piled-up NYT e-mails, and noticed that David Foster Wallace, who I mentioned here, had written a review of the very same Borges biography that I discussed here. From the Nov 5 Books Update e-mail:

1. In Sunday's Book Review: David Foster Wallace on the Life of Jorge Luis Borges
============================================================

"Edwin Williamson is an Oxford don and esteemed Hispanist
whose 'Penguin History of Latin America' is a small
masterpiece of lucidity and triage. It is therefore
unsurprising that his 'Borges' starts strong, with a
fascinating sketch of Argentine history and the Borges
family's place within it. ..."

"The big problem with 'Borges: A Life' is that Williamson is
an atrocious reader of Borges's work; his interpretations
amount to a simplistic, dishonest kind of psychological
criticism. You can see why this problem might be intrinsic to
the genre. A biographer wants his story to be not only
interesting but literarily valuable. ... Biography-wise,
then, we have a strange situation in which Borges's
individual personality and circumstances matter only insofar
as they lead him to create artworks in which such personal
facts are held to be unreal."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/books/review/07WALLACE.html?8bu

First Chapter
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/books/chapters/1031-1st-williamson.html?8bu

Same edition of that Sunday's Book Review had these two reviews worth archiving:

'Men and Cartoons': The Superhero Next Door
Review by JAY McINERNEY
Jonathan Lethem's new story collection features talking
livestock, sci-fi detectives and a comic-book sensibility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/books/review/07MCINERN.html?8bu

-----

'Perilous Times': War of Words
Review by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Geoffrey R. Stone's book is a history of the government's
struggle with the right to free speech during military
conflicts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/books/review/07HITCHENS.html?8bu