Americans in Paris (Toni Morrison and Jonathan Littell)
So I haven't really been blogging a lot recently but I didn't want to miss out on posting about this: Two Americans are making waves in Paris: Toni Morrison at the Louvre and Jonathan Littell for his book, Les Bienveillantes.
Toni Morrison was invited to spend two years working with the curators of the Louvre, to develop a series of exhibits and a conference. She chose the theme "Etranger chez soi" and assembled works in a variety of media from various historical time periods.
And ... Jonathan Littell, an American author, won the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious-- or maybe just the most publicized-- annual literary prize, for his first novel, a 900-page behemoth written in French. And he won it fair and square, too: 7 votes to 3 in the first round of voting (versus other prize juries that end up voting up to 10 or 11 times, with the winner only decided because the president of the jury can cast his vote twice (in that situation only?)).That on top of already having won a prize from the Académie française. There's been a bit of a kerfuffle around his work already-- an American? writing in French?? And oh, he's the son of another famous writer, so it's only thanks to Daddy that he even got published, and only thanks to a marketing campaign (understood: American and demagogic, of course) that anybody knows or cares that he got published.
Thus Les Inrockuptibles has a chip on his shoulder about him, while Télérama-- the magazine read by Inrocks readers' parents-- hearts him beaucoup. I have to say, as an aside, I read Les Inrocks as a way of staying up-to-date on all kinds of cultural production, despite the fact that I nearly always disagree with their reviewers.
Pierre Assouline, the literary blogger for Le Monde has basically told the naysayers, "y'all just be hatin'" in several posts; and claimed that the last resort of the hatas is always accuse to a successful book 1) of being ghostwritten and then 2) of being plagiarized from an unpublished manuscript. And that we shouldn't hold our collective breath.
So, hopefully I'll get around to this novel eventually. I've never rushed out to pick up a newly minted Goncourt (or figuratively, I guess, rushed to the Internet to order it) but why not this year?
Toni Morrison was invited to spend two years working with the curators of the Louvre, to develop a series of exhibits and a conference. She chose the theme "Etranger chez soi" and assembled works in a variety of media from various historical time periods.
And ... Jonathan Littell, an American author, won the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious-- or maybe just the most publicized-- annual literary prize, for his first novel, a 900-page behemoth written in French. And he won it fair and square, too: 7 votes to 3 in the first round of voting (versus other prize juries that end up voting up to 10 or 11 times, with the winner only decided because the president of the jury can cast his vote twice (in that situation only?)).That on top of already having won a prize from the Académie française. There's been a bit of a kerfuffle around his work already-- an American? writing in French?? And oh, he's the son of another famous writer, so it's only thanks to Daddy that he even got published, and only thanks to a marketing campaign (understood: American and demagogic, of course) that anybody knows or cares that he got published.
Thus Les Inrockuptibles has a chip on his shoulder about him, while Télérama-- the magazine read by Inrocks readers' parents-- hearts him beaucoup. I have to say, as an aside, I read Les Inrocks as a way of staying up-to-date on all kinds of cultural production, despite the fact that I nearly always disagree with their reviewers.
Pierre Assouline, the literary blogger for Le Monde has basically told the naysayers, "y'all just be hatin'" in several posts; and claimed that the last resort of the hatas is always accuse to a successful book 1) of being ghostwritten and then 2) of being plagiarized from an unpublished manuscript. And that we shouldn't hold our collective breath.
So, hopefully I'll get around to this novel eventually. I've never rushed out to pick up a newly minted Goncourt (or figuratively, I guess, rushed to the Internet to order it) but why not this year?
posted by Françoise Villon at 2:49 PM
0 comments
