Michael Maar’s allegations that Lolita was plagiarized were first reported in the Telegraph and mentioned here on Moorishgirl in mid-March, with further details that same month. Other lit blogs also commented on the news. Now the New York Times has caught on, with a piece about the allegations and the general disbelief they engendered.
Another follow up on the challenge to Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by the Federal Way School District. The Seattle P.I. says that a complaint was filed against the teacher and that as, a result of this brouhaha, the district will now have to approve reading lists for all grades.
The Tribune India has an interview with Rupa Bajwa,whose debut novel, The Sari Shop, was on the Orange Prize longlist.
What is it to be a Punjabi girl writing in English?
Being a ‘Punjabi Girl’ certainly didn’t make things easier. Neither the Punjabi bit nor the girl bit.
You can also read the Guardian‘s review of the novel here.
The Guardian profiles John Updike and reveals, among other things, the writer’s competitive side.
If Updike’s name now commands respect throughout New York and beyond, it is in part thanks to the magazine inseparably identified with the city. He has been a contributor to the New Yorker for half a century and shows no signs of drying up. “John is very competitive with the younger writers,” says Roger Angell, who has been his editor for fiction at the New Yorker since 1976. “For about 20 years he’s thought he’s on the brink of not being able to write any more short fiction. If I mention that we’ve got a story by a terrific young writer, he’ll say, ‘Oh really’, and within a couple of weeks he’ll send in a wonderful short story.”
Read it here.
In response to Friday’s post on race issues in the Tintin comics, a kind reader sends this link to a parody site called Tintin and the War in Iraq, featuring General Alcazar as President Bush, Captain Haddock as a UN inspector, Sheik Abdullah as Osama Bin Laden, etc. The only misstep is that Tintin is presented as a French (rather than Belgian) citizen. Still, it’s really quite good. Have a look.
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of emails I received about the entry on Ahmad Al-Aidy’s new book, An-Takoun Abbas Al-Abd. Unfortunately, I don’t know where you can order the book online, and if I find out, I will post the information here. In the meantime, your best bet is to find someone who can get you the book from Egypt. (BTW, thanks, Randa!)
Thanks to a reader at the Temple De Hirsch Sinai Library in Seattle and to the proprietor of the blog himself, I’ve discovered that Kinnblog (which had linked to MG a couple of weeks ago) is the first lit blog in the Hebrew language. It’s run from the offices of Kinneret-Zmora Bitan-Dvir Publishing House in Israel, though it’s independent of the house itself and features articles on local and international literary news.
The current Tintin exhibition at the London Maritime Museum continues to generate ink, this time by A.N. Wilson in the Telegraph.
It speaks volumes about the difference between modern England and France that the only title unavailable in an English translation is Tintin au Congo, written in 1946. We had read it in English in a borrowed book, but after serious nagging from the youngest Tintin fan in the house, I went off to the European bookshop in Warwick Street to buy it new. When we had read Tintin au Congo together, the six-year-old remarked, with the accurate callousness of her age, that Herge had made the Africans really stupid, and also that he had depicted them as having black skins, whereas they should have been dark brown.
She could have gone further. The inhabitants of Congo with whom Tintin has dealings are not merely black, they are scarcely human. When Tintin records the cynical remarks made about them by their witch-doctor (“ce peuple ignorant et stupide sous domination de moi”) the villagers would only confirm his prejudice. They think he has been trapped in the actual horn of the phonograph. (The attempts by the Africans to get an antiquated steam engine back on the rails come to nought until Tintin bellows at them for their laziness.)
Later on, Wilson takes further exception to the book, noting that the African landscapes weren’t depicted as magically and beautifully as in “Tibet, South America and Arab lands,” where other Tintin adventures were set. See, all I remember from Tintin and The Crab With the Golden Claws are the savage ‘Berabers,’ and the mock Arabic script. Tintin and The Land of Black Gold stirs up memories of the evil Sheik and the insufferable Abdullah. The landscapes, if there were any, must have gone right over my head.
Link via Bookninja (again.)
Russell Smith makes the connection between Iraq and Heart of Darkness.
Update: Oops, looks like Bookninja got to this link already. (Scroll to 5/20 entries.)
W.W. Norton is going to publish the reports of the 9-11 commission’s investigation. Or you can get it free online.
