Martin Amis

The Pregnant Widow is either being heralded as Mart's return from bad writing to the good stuff we remember him for, or as absolute crap, just a notch above the dreaded Yellow Dog. It all depends on whose reviews you read.

As for me, I'll probably be having a review of up for CS2.com coming out over the summer. It is a good summer read, even though the territory is already well-trod. Michel Houellebecq comes to mind when I read some of the passages about physical peculiarities.

Still, there are some original moments, though I'm not quite sure yet how my review will go down.

JPC

Stephanie Barron betrays Virginia Woolf

Having just finished this morning the novel "The White Garden" by Stephanie Barron, I can now understand why my mother never finished reading through Barron's Jane Austin Mystery series. The books, while somewhat lighthearted and enjoyable at times, lack all academic background, paint over the obvious, center around duller than dull and dumber than dumb characters and contain only occasional moments of insight into anything other than Ms. Barron's own dwindling imagination.

The portrait of Virginia Woolf (and her lover, Vita Sackville-West) is a cardboard cut out from "The Hours", running around like a paranoid little bird from one person to the next, demanding to be saved while attempting her own distruction. The character of Margaux, however, is the most interesting of all the characters--as a parody of a shrill feminist scholar, she actually does make a few things clear and helps the story along alright, but other than that, she's worthless, as is the rest of the lot who appear in the book. She stands for one of the many (incorrect) versions of Woolf's personal life floating about academia.

Modern writers, attempting to delve into the mind of a woman writer whose whole buisness was that of delving into the mind and it's failings, fail in their efforts because they only paint Virginia Woolf with one brush--she was always the mad woman in a long, heavy coat, chain smoking and talking to herself, never anything else. She did go through periods of bliss, you know. Vita was a wonderful influence in her life, as was Leonard. The three of them were very happy for some time, not that you would know it from Ms. Barron.

However, I'll probably keep a copy of the book, just for my collection of Woolfinalia.

JPC.

Michiko and Mart

Michiko Kakutani and Martin Amis have always had a kind of love/hate relationship; now that "The Pregnant Widow" has been released in America, Michiko has decided to turn on the hate side of their relationship. She envokes the dreaded "Yellow Dog" (which I have a signed copy of, by the way) and compares it to this novel, with this novel coming out at a marginally better critical standpoint.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/books/11book.html?ref=books

I'm still going to buy a copy for myself, though, to understand what's going on.

JPC.

Kindle/Ipad

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/04/opinion/04opchart.html

Please read about the environmental disaster that is Kindle. I'll be sticking with riding my bike down to the second-hand bookstore, thank you.

James.

My Best

I'm going to include here links to my favorite pieces of work that I've written for CommonSense2.com.



I've been writing for CS2.com since 2008 and it is my favorite place to write. The founder of the magazine, Chuck Brown, used to own a bookstore in Kutztown until he had to move out last year. Chuck Brown gave me my first ever job in the literary world and I will be forever grateful to him.



A short review of Cormac McCarthy's most recent play The Sunset Limited which I gave the subtitle "Est Cormac McCarthy En Attendant Godot?" http://commonsense2.com/2008/06/book-reviews/a-slow-train-comin%e2%80%99-the-sunset-limited-by-cormac-mccarthy/



A review of Gore Vidal's bestselling sin-sation Myra Breckenridge

http://commonsense2.com/2008/08/book-reviews/myra-breckenridge-by-gore-vidal/



Joyce Carol Oates' Beasts in the October 2008 issue (just in time for Halloween)

http://commonsense2.com/2008/10/book-reviews/beasts-by-joyce-carol-oates/

My Obituary for John Updike, titled "Writer at Rest":

http://commonsense2.com/2009/02/book-reviews/john-updike-writer-at-rest/

"With Love, From E. E. Cummings", my true story of love, loss and modern poetry

http://commonsense2.com/2009/06/essays/with-love-from-e-e-cummings/

And my favorite commentary, "Walt Whitman and the Mad Men"

http://commonsense2.com/2009/12/cultural-criticism/walt-whitman-and-the-mad-men/

JPC.

New Review

Here is my new review at CommonSense2.com, published on May 1st, 2010.

http://commonsense2.com/2010/05/book-reviews/the-professor-and-the-madman-by-simon-winchester/

It is a review of "The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester, all about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

JPC