Laila Lalami

Today is the centennial of Erskine Caldwell’s birth and the New York Times has a profile of the author.

“I knew what I wanted to write and what I wanted to write about,” he once recalled. “I wanted to write about the people I knew as they really lived, moved, and talked.”
Using Maine as his base, Caldwell began what became the lifelong habit of writing a story a week. Unlike most aspiring novelists of the Jazz Age, Caldwell was unafraid to bring crude sexuality and barnyard humor into his fiction.

Read the full article here.

Farewell to Manzanar author Jeanne Wakatsuki has written a novel about the Japanese American internments of the second World War and the SF Chronicle has an interview.

Photographs of children thought to have been the inspiration for JM Barrie’s Peter Pan were discovered in Devon. The finds also include original manuscripts by Daphne du Maurier.

Best books of 2003, by the SF Chronicle.

Askold Melnyczuk has a piece in AGNI on the eleven thousand Iraqis who have perished since the start of the invasion and on our persistence in not talking about them. The article is particularly au point given the recent decision to stop counting Iraqi civilian casualties.

Financier George Soros writes about the American doctrine of supremacy for the Atlantic Monthly. Much of the article is written in short, simple sentences, to build a clear, simple argument.

A recent Council on Foreign Relations publication sketches out three alternative national-security strategies. The first calls for the pursuit of American supremacy through the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action. It is advocated by neoconservatives. The second seeks the continuation of our earlier policy of deterrence and containment. It is advocated by Colin Powell and other moderates, who may be associated with either political party. The third would have the United States lead a cooperative effort to improve the world by engaging in preventive actions of a constructive character. It is not advocated by any group of significance, although President Bush pays lip service to it. (…)
The evidence shows the first option to be extremely dangerous, and I believe that the second is no longer practical. The Bush Administration has done too much damage to our standing in the world to permit a return to the status quo. (…)
Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states. What goes on within individual states can be of vital interest to the rest of the world, but the principle of sovereignty militates against interfering in their internal affairs. How to deal with failed states and oppressive, corrupt, and inept regimes? How to get rid of the likes of Saddam? There are too many such regimes to wage war against every one. This is the great unresolved problem confronting us today.
I propose replacing the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action with preventive action of a constructive and affirmative nature. Increased foreign aid or better and fairer trade rules, for example, would not violate the sovereignty of the recipients. Military action should remain a last resort. The United States is currently preoccupied with issues of security, and rightly so. But the framework within which to think about security is collective security. Neither nuclear proliferation nor international terrorism can be successfully addressed without international cooperation. The world is looking to us for leadership. We have provided it in the past; the main reason why anti-American feelings are so strong in the world today is that we are not providing it in the present.

Well, good. Let’s hope Saddam is turned over to an Iraqi tribunal. And now that he’s caught, we have one less reason to be in Iraq any longer.

*With all those brilliant minds behind the man, one would think they could’ve come up with something better, no?

Okay, so I think we’re getting the hang of this packing thing. We’re essentially done, with just a few random items left. The move is scheduled for Tuesday, after which we will be have what we euphemistically call a “transition” period, and then on to Portland. I will probably continue to blog sporadically through this, but since everyone else is busy with end-of-year amusements, things should work out nicely.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark was saying that he’d rather get audited than deal with moving. I have to say, I’m starting to agree. I haven’t done much but pack, pack, pack. Sorry for the sporadic postings. And thanks to those who have emailed me with info or sent early housewarming gifts.

Lizzie’s got poems in Barrow Street (buy it here) and in the next Iowa Review.

(*We wouldn’t want you to forget our membership in the literary cabal or anything.)