When The New York Times starts to talk about monkeying around with its books section, a large sector of the publishing industry sits up and takes notice. So the rumors currently circulating have to be causing some near-aneurysms, particularly among writers, editors, and readers of fiction. The Times is planning to cut way back on the number of novels it reviews, with arts editor Steven Erlanger saying that, “To be honest, there’s so much s—” in the current fiction market. Non-fiction will get the lion’s share of the focus in the future, and there will be fewer straight reviews, and more coverage of the publishing industry in general, as well as a new focus on reviewing the type of “popular” books once shunned by high-minded books sections.
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What Have They Got Against Fiction?
ArtsJournal blogger Our Girl In Chicago is upset at some of the changes coming to the Times books section. “It’s not as though my reading habits are going to take a big hit even if the NYTBR banishes fiction reviews from their pages altogether. Yet the blinkered reasoning proffered by [Times executive editor] Bill Keller rankles. First there’s his general blithe condescension toward novels, apparently based on an assumption that while nonfiction is serious, fiction is just playing around. Even if Bill Keller really thinks this, it astonishes me that he’d say it, let alone that the Times would base editorial policy on it.”
Castro & The Librarians
“A bitter, months-long dispute within the American Library Association – the largest nation-based organization of librarians in the world – continues as to whether to demand that Fidel Castro release 10 imprisoned independent librarians found guilty of making available to Cubans copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights.” The ALA had the chance, at its recent convention, to call for the release of their Cuban colleagues, but a motion to this effect was overwhelmingly defeated in favor of a tepid statement of “deep concern” over the imprisonments.
The Electric Kool-Aid Writing Test
Two new Ken Kesey books have recently been posthumously released, begging the question of exactly what Kesey could have accomplished in life, had he just been able to focus on writing, rather than on the drugs which so many of his contemporaries insist were the source of much of his creativity. “When Kesey forsook literature in 1964 to become a man of letters—LSD—did he blow it? Or did he ignite a refining fire that still burns bright at the heart of every rave in America? Did drugs make him, or undo him?”
The Whitney’s New Direction
The Whitney Museum is undergoing a dramatic behind-the-scenes makeover, with new director Adam Weinberg restructuring the administration, creating a “council of wise persons” to advise him, and shaking up the curatorial designations put in place by his predecessor, Maxwell Anderson. Weinberg is still interested in looking at expansion options for the Whitney, which famously cancelled a recent planned expansion designed by architect Rem Koolhaas, but his short-term goals lie in the stabilization of an institution which has been perceived as chaotic and directionless for some time.
Hard Work and Lofty Goals: The Vänskä Vision
When the Minnesota Orchestra appointed Osmo Vänskä as its new music director, there were approving nods from orchestras around the world, and many murmurs to the effect that the famously stoic and hard-working Finn might just nudge the Minneapolis-based ensemble closer to the top of the American orchestral heap. But no one in Minnesota seems to be interested in nudging. In fact, in only Vänskä’s first season, the orchestra is recording a complete Beethoven cycle, paying a visit to New York’s famously skeptical critics, and embarking on an ambitious 20-day tour of European musical capitals. Andrew Clark sees a distinct strategy in play: “a concerted push for promotion to the orchestral super league.”
Stolen Goods? Maybe. But You’re Not Allowed To Ask
“An El Greco painting displayed recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was returned Thursday to the Greek museum that owns it after a state judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming it had been stolen by Nazis at the end of World War II… The suit sought to keep the painting in the United States pending further investigation of its provenance. It was rejected under a federal statute that says a lawsuit cannot be used to seize or control a cultural object brought into this country by a nonprofit institution like a museum for temporary exhibition.”
The Museum As Art: Have We Forgotten About the Art Inside?
As more and more architects gain celebrity status, the buildings they design are becoming decidedly larger than life, and the design of the exterior shell is beginning to overshadow whatever is supposed to be going on inside the walls. In Bellevue, Washington, a museum hailed as an architectural breakthrough closed its doors this past fall, and part of the reason was said to be that the interior was simply ill-suited to house art collections. The disconnect between form and function in Bellevue is being viewed with alarm throughout the industry, and many observers are rethinking the role of the architect in such projects.
Gehry and the Tyranny Of Form
When Frank Gehry unveils his plans for the new Art Gallery of Ontario building later this week, the usual debate of form vs. function will surely ensue. “What has the success of the Guggenheim Bilbao done to the discipline of museum design, detractors ask? Has the need for the spectacular rendered the discipline of architecture more superficial, when every urban centre must boast its own curving titanium mothership to feel world class? One can’t help but notice that Gehry has become the architect of someplace wanting to be someplace better.”
The Next Harry Potter?
The series is called His Dark Materials, and many observers have it pegged as the next global phenomenon of children’s fantasy literature. But there is a more adult side to Philip Pullman’s tales of fantastic adventure, and it’s bound to make many adults uncomfortable: “The books make a breathtakingly subversive attack on organized religion and on the notion of an all-powerful god. The trilogy has already been criticized by church organizations alarmed at its preference for humanism and for its depiction of a cruel fictional church that is obsessed with what it regards as the sexual purity of children but blinded by its own lust for power.”