The fourth installment of a new column on New Yorker fiction, past and present, by writer and editor Benjamin Chambers.
I’m threatening to become a walking Department of Amplification. In my first post, I erred about Updike’s unmatched output for The New Yorker, and I just remembered that Deborah Eisenberg introduced me to the works of Alice Munro (50 stories in TNY, through April 2007) and—much more significantly for my own later reading—Mavis Gallant, short story writer nonpareil, which contradicts my recollection about Jean Stafford in my second post. Oh well.
I expect to say more in the future about why Gallant (114 short stories in TNY) deserves to be compared, as she has been, to Chekhov and James, but right now, I’ve got an even better treat in store for you: seeing and hearing her do that herself.
Thanks to a post from Andrew Saikali over on The Millions, you can take a peek at this brief, abruptly truncated 1988 interview with Gallant in Aurora.
Through Saikali, I also learned about an audio interview Gallant did recently for Canadian radio, now available for download. In it, you can hear Gallant read from her story, “The Moslem Wife” (published in TNY, August 23, 1976), talk about a crooked agent who was publishing her stories in TNY and pocketing the proceeds, and more. (By coincidence, Deborah Eisenberg’s interview for the same show the week prior is also available on the same page.)
No time to listen to the full hour? You can also get shorter fragments from the interview and an appreciation by one of my favorite Canadian short story writers, Lisa Moore. Or you can hear Antonya Nelson read Gallant’s 1960 story, “When We Were Nearly Young†over at newyorker.com. Still not enough for you? Rattling Books has 11 hours of Gallant’s fiction on CD. I’d jump on it.
Gallant, who is Canadian, has lived in and written about France for decades—which conveniently puts me in mind of TNY’s incomparable Adam Gopnik (359 pieces in TNY through April 2007, of which four were short stories), who has also written so charmingly about France. Only a few days ago, he was interviewed in San Franciso—a half hour of this wide-ranging conversation is now available at the always fascinating Fora.TV.
Though I was glad to learn what Gopnik looks like, there’s nothing visual about the interview otherwise—treat it like an audio interview, and let it roll while you do your deep knee bends or whatever it is you do while listening to podcasts. But do check it out: you’ll be glad you did.
Monthly Archives: February 2008
William F. Buckley, 1925-2008
Martin Schneider writes:
When I pondered William Buckley with reference to The New Yorker, my first thought was that someone so conservative must surely have scorned such a bastion of liberal sentiment. The Complete New Yorker archive shows such a supposition to be hostage to more recent Rove-ian (and not just Rove-ian) categories of political discourse. Buckley was a creature of a no less heated but perhaps a less doctrinaire age; his byline appeared in The New Yorker no fewer than 11 times.
His work for The New Yorker fell into two broad categories: articles about sailing and journal-like accounts of his daily lot. As Buckley in National Review possessed a vessel for his own political opinions, it likely never occurred to him to rail against the welfare state in the pages of The New Yorker.
I confess that to me, Buckley was a figure out of Doonesbury cartoons and Woody Allen movies from the 1970s. I don’t remember Firing Line. I have caught him on old episodes of The Dick Cavett Show, and I can tell that he must have been a delicious object of abhorrence for the East Coast liberals of the day. Next to Rove he looks positively benign; judging from his views on Iraq he was closer to the Upper West Side liberal of today than either side of that dyad ever would have imagined.
Buckley’s first contribution, a two-parter from 1971 billed in the Complete New Yorker as an account of his “activities in November,” looks especially interesting. Go check it out.
Update: On his blog, Hendrik Hertzberg posts this fond reminiscence of his encounter with the preeminent conservative. Elsewhere on the site, Ben Greenman directs us to a YouTube clip of Buckley and Gore Vidal being nasty to one another (these clips of Buckley debating Noam Chomsky are almost as compelling).
Comment Spam Verges On Ern Malley Grandeur
Martin Schneider writes:
Like most blogs’ comments sections, ours is daily inundated with quizzical and nonsensical appeals of indeterminate origin. Just now I came across this, which I think has a daft poetic integrity all its own:
Greetings!..
There was merrily!
The Regard! The Excellent forum! Thank you!
I feel like taking a bow.
Paul Noth Unlikely to Win Midwestern Delegates?
First New Yorker cartoonist Matt Diffee pissed off Scranton, PA, although I think they forgave him eventually.
Now, Paul Noth (whom you may know as one of the masterminds behind Conan O’Brien’s Pale Force, among other things) has rattled Sheboygan with a cartoon that, as the local paper puts it, “depicts an expansive suburban landscape with a long wall meandering through it with the caption: ‘The Great Drywall of Sheboygan.'” For its part, Dubuque, which can surely take its New Yorker association for granite (as Pogo would say), seems a little miffed at being left out.
Who’s next? Martin, want to investigate which other town names have been mentioned in cartoons? (Who could forget Roz Chast’s DKNJ?) And what happens if the cartoonist is pardoned? Does he or she get a two-dimensional, Flat Stanley/Harold-esque key to the city, maybe?
Lizzie Widdicombe: An Ingenious Talk Technique
Widdcombe covered a festive book event (Not Quite What I Was Planning). Each pithy phrase is subtly witty: It’s no longer than six words. Appropriate for the book in question! I couldn’t make the party, sadly. But I did contribute a tale. Oh, you’d like to hear it? “Do as say, not as did.” (P. 180, in all its glory.) Another memoirist compiled a master list. Moved to write your short story? Show off your quick, dirty syntax.
Fact: “New” Plus “Jack Handey” Often Equals Laughter
Jack Handey has a book coming out! I just learned this, and it made me happy. Pub date is April 8! The title story, “What I’d Say to the Martians,” might be the funniest thing I’ve read in the past five years; you can read it here. How much “Shouts & Murmurs” stuff has made it to book form? I reckon Woody Allen and Steve Martin have pulled it off. Anyone else?
I love the cover, too:
New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade has been hosting a series of highly entertaining reading events to promote Ben Karlin’s new anthology, Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me. I went to the one last Thursday, and fellow “Shouts and Murmurs” alum Paul Simms read part of his very funny chapter.
At one point Brooke Shields showed up and told a great story about dating the not-yet-outed frontman for a very popular 1980s singing duo that must, alas, remain nameless.
Fun fact: Brooke Shields has never written a “Shouts & Murmurs” item!
Michael Specter on Fresh Air, on Those Pesky Carbon Footprints
Wasn’t that a good piece? He spoke about it on Fresh Air, and in a New Yorker Out Loud audio interview with Matt Dellinger.
Later: There’s a fascinating debate at Speak Up about whether artists and designers, and Stefan Sagmeister in particular, are or should be obligated to keep their footprint, or bananaprint, small. (And speaking of being green, here’s my sister Kate’s letter in yesterday’s Times on the best bet for “EcoMoms.”)
Who’s Published the Most Short Stories in The New Yorker?
The third installment of a new column on New Yorker fiction, past and present, by writer and editor Benjamin Chambers.
A couple of weeks ago, I rashly declared that John Updike had to be the record-holder when it came to publishing the most short stories in The New Yorker. Should’ve known better than to venture so boldly into speculation: as it happens, The New Yorker‘s librarians, Jon Michaud and Erin Overbey, covered this for Emdashes a while back in “Ask the Librarians,” and it turns out that James Thurber and S.J. Perelman are the neck-and-neck front-runners by far. Despite his prodigious output, Updike isn’t even in the top three—he comes in sixth.
Here’s the librarians’ list. Each author is followed by the number of short stories he published in The New Yorker during his career (or to date):
1. James Thurber—273
2. S.J. Perelman—272
3. John O’Hara—227
4. Frank Sullivan—192
5. E.B. White—183
6. John Updike—168
Now, there’s a reading list! (Albeit an all-male one.)
Thanks, Emily (and Erin and Jon), for setting me straight!
Happy February 21st! And What’s Your Favorite Cartoonist Quirk?
I shouldn’t have to tell you what day this is, but in case you’re still in the dark, let this lovely reminiscence enlighten you.
Meanwhile, over at the New Yorker cartoon blog, Michael Maslin has been doing a bang-up job as Cartoonist of the Month. All of his posts so far are worth reading (and seeing!); here’s his partial list of favorite things—visual, conceptual, ocular, sartorial, mechanical, typographical, architectural, nasal, and feline—about his comrades’ cartooning. Off the top of my head, I’d add Carolita Johnson’s befuddled boyfriends, Gahan Wilson’s noses (human and otherwise), Charles Barsotti’s beards, Barbara Smaller’s lamps, William Hamilton’s gravity-defying bosoms, and Matt Diffee’s pigeons, among others. How about you?
“First Priest in White House” Encounters Prickly Troublemaker
Martin Schneider writes:
Obama takes Wisconsin, with Hawaii results to come.
In late 2006 a New Yorker podcast of David Remnick interviewing Barack Obama did a fair amount to convince me that Obama was my kind of candidate. There’s nothing like 45 minutes of sustained discourse (at that time, hard to come by) to clarify one’s impression of a person. I’ve supported Obama ever since.
Today, it’s a curio, but perhaps all the more interesting for being more than a year old. Here’s the file itself; here’s a transcript. Terms from the headline are derived from the interview (natch). Enjoy.