MY LIFE AND THOUGHTS

Having, in a recent post, expressed some concern regarding the global Possessed-to-Labradoodle ratio, I was thrilled to receive the following images of Boswell, Adelaide-based Labradoodle:

A big thanks to James for the moving and inspirational pictures – which, to be totally honest, filled me not only with delight at my widening empire, but also with an inexplicable melancholy.  I so much wished I had a Labradoodle called Boswell!  I think I just really miss my intern, who has been on the other side of the planet for several months now, holding down the US side of business…

Speaking of business, latest 5-star review is up here.

In keeping with a recent resolution, this post is devoted to a writer who is still living… or should I say, already living?  I was delighted but bemused to receive the following request for career advice, on behalf of a family friend whose “youngest son has a liking to write”:

Enis apparently started writing a book (?) when he was 6 and after many redo’s has finalized the 300+ pages recently. It’s in English, he attends a British primary school in Ankara. He has written poetry which has been published in some sort of publication in England through his school. He is very outgoing, active in all theatrical plays & enjoys being the master of ceremony in events. He has contacted someone in the US to publish his book but the deal was so confusing he let go.

His family is seeking some sort of advice on the possibilities of publishing such a book, but more importantly on defining a path to develop his abilities. I thought you may be able to suggest a way or someone who could usher this young fellow.

Needless to say, despite various differences in our characters (I don’t care for being the master of ceremonies, myself), I felt a great sympathy for little Enis. How vividly one can picture the situation sketched in the 8 words: “the deal was so confusing he let go”! Alas, despite my status as the writer of the family, I have little if any idea how a 6-year-old would go about getting a 300-pp novel published in the US or anywhere else.

My response was that the most important thing for such a very young writer is the love and support of his parents; and also that one nice English-language publication venue for children under 13 is the literary magazine Stone Soup. Those interested in the latest American literary trends will find much of interest in the archive of “embryo lit” (if I may coin a term) on themes ranging from Holocaust to Native American.  Personally I recommend the Kafkaesque “They’re Pigs!”, by Adam Jacobs (age 11), and “A Girl With Red Hair Is Nice To Know!”, by Annika Thomas (also 11).

Thanks to the talented living writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus for this amazing image by Nat Farbman: Dutch billiards prodigy Renske Quax feeding cream to his cat.

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This one goes out to contemporary Canadian nonfiction writer Tom Jokinen, from whom I recently received the following word-picture of The Possessed in an exotic location:

In Grange Park, Toronto. Arctic snap over. Trees pushing green. Labradoodle to small dog ratio about even. Old Chinese couple with styrofoam cooler in a bundle buggy because they bought fish. Young Indian gentleman carrying a tuba. Hipsters with oversized headphones. Didn’t know this was a thing. Man in tweed reading The Possessed. Thought you should know.

I was so happy to hear this, although not as happy as I will be the day the Labradoodle-to-Possessed ratio finally reaches parity.  Still, big thanks to the man in tweed, for doing his part!

Jokinen, whom I had the privilege of meeting in an elevator in Melbourne, is the author of the fascinating and creepy Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training, which I am currently reading as part of an intensive program of Gothic research. I think it is a great public service for a super-smart, funny, and talented writer to spend a year examining what actually happens to dead people in our culture, what befalls their mustaches and teeth, how and under whose stewardship they get in and out of their clothes.

Frequently, while reading Curtains, I am brought to mind of a conversation between Osip Mandelstam and Isaac Babel, regarding Babel’s persistent socializing with members of the Soviet secret police:

Was it a desire to see what it was like in the exclusive store where the merchandise was death? Did he just want to touch it with his fingers? “No,” Babel replied. “I don’t want to touch it with my fingers—I just want to have a sniff and see what it smells like.” (From Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope)

I may add that Curtains looked really great the other day against the view from my bedroom window (the forest near the Black Sea), back when it was actually sunny and people thought spring had finally reached Istanbul.

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Today the skies are again Kindle-gray…

Prolific readers!  I am happy to announce a new accretion to the growing folklore of how tall I am, via email from super-novelist Jim Harrison.

Harrison, to Batuman:

I felt so bad to hear from a friend that you were very tall and didn’t see your little dog that you sat on and crushed. The dog will either forgive you in heaven or not which is a possibility. Dog heaven is the size of Missouri. Sometimes a million of them swim across the Mississippi at once.  Obviously they no longer poop. […]

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Batuman, to Harrison:

that dog-crushing story is pure apocrypha!!  may i put it on my blog?

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Harrison, to Batuman:

A relief to find you didn’t murder the little fellow.  Tall people go through the world inadvertently kicking little creatures.  They shall be judged.  Put it on your blog since I don’t really know what a blog is.  An elephant turd?

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Well there you have it, inscribed on the giant elephant turd that is My Life and Thoughts. Ironically, or maybe unironically, I am giving a talk to explain what blogs are, this very Saturday at the Koç University Anatolian Research Institute in Beyoğlu (info here chez my heroic copanelist, Kaya Genç) – a great chance for people in Istanbul to spot me not-in-the-forest, and also of course to learn what a blog is.  In English/ Turkish with simultaneous translation.

I return now to my important blog-related researches, though not without a worry in the corner of my mind: what if I really did sit on a tiny dog and didn’t even notice it because I am so very tall?

Satiated readers!  Please join me in getting excited again about The Possessed, in honor of next week’s UK launch! Conveniently, the book now looks completely different. I thought I would never like any cover as much as Roz Chast’s FSG paperback - but check out the new Granta hardcover, designed byMichael Salu:

I love the original paperback, because it’s so scary and cheap, two of my favorite qualities.  But I also love the new hardcover, because it’s so trippy and classy, two more of my favorite qualities.

The new cover illustration is based on the dream sequence in “Who Killed Tolstoy?”:

I dreamed I was playing tennis against Tolstoy. As Alice in Wonderland plays croquet with a flamingo for a mallet, I was playing tennis with a goose for a racket. Lev Nikolayevich had a normal racket. I served the ball, producing a flurry of fluffy gray down. Tolstoy’s mighty backhand projected the ball far beyond the outermost limits of the tennis lawn, into the infinite dimension of total knowledge and human understanding. Match point.

It is, as Salu explains, “a dual cover, with either Elif or Tolstoy winning the rally depending on how the book is held”: