Readings: Dyn-O-Mite!

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When J.M.G. le Clézio won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I had never heard of him. That very fact piqued my interest. I therefore borrowed his 1973 novel, War, from the library. That will be my next reading project. Here is the opening paragraph of War:

War has broken out. Where or how, nobody knows any longer. But the fact remains. By now it is behind each person’s head, its mouth agape and panting. War of crimes and insults, of hate-filled eyes, of thoughts exploding from skulls. It is there, reared up over the world, casting its network of electric wires over the earth’s surface. Each second, as it rolls on, it uproots all things in its path, reduces them to dust. It strikes indiscriminately with its bristling array of hooks, claws, beaks. Nobody will survive unscathed. Nobody will be spared. That is what war is: the eye of truth.

Hmm. Outside of the fact that war has gone wireless since 1973, that sounds about right, I’m afraid.
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NORMAN MAILER, R.I.P.

I have just read that Norman Mailer has died. In my estimation, he was a giant of American letters. As I am not fit to lace up Mailer's boxing gloves, I will leave it to others more capable than I to eulogize the man: the mensch. I will say, however, that if there was a rush this year to award the Nobel Prize for Literature one step ahead of the Grim Reaper, then the Nobel committee fucked up, big time. Doris Lessing, talented as she is, wouldn't make a patch on Norman Mailer's ass.

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