Rustum Kozain

Yes, synchronising Groundwork with my BookSA blog has been placed on the backburner, so much so that I have forgotten about my hypothetical BookSA audience and/or have suffered identity-crash (just google it!). Until such synchronisation, I thought, I would just duplicate posts from Groundwork here, opening up the possibility of providing readers with an unnecessary loop by which to inflate my hitcount. I’ll do that nevertheless; but since I do not carry advertising, it is only my ego which will be mislead by such inflated figures and thus of negligible ethical import. So here are some links to recent posts - well, some of them aren’t really posts, but links to articles in that bare-bones genre of the lazy blogger.

First off, let me point to two entries about a little criticism that Terry Eagleton made of Martin Amis, which was turned into a piece of literary gossip - an important sociological element of any rich literary tradition - on a Guardian blog. Eagleton then responded to this, also on a Guardian blog, and much time can be spent in hair-pulling despair reading through the comments on both entries.

Secondly, I will gradually be archiving reviews I’ve written at Groundwork.

Thirdly, here is some linkage to a recent takedown of “Brooklyn Books of Wonder” by Melvin Jules Bukiet. This “Wonderbread” includes writers like Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers, and eventually extends beyond geographical Brooklyn to become a psychic state. Read it soon because The American Scholar might close the link. In the same vein and post is a link to an older takedown, by B.R. Myers, of writers like Proulx, Cormac McCarthy and DeLillo.

Among the 300 000 heavy items - along with many, many other vehicles and equipment - that, erm, militate against a quick withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, logistics of which are also being used as a reason to stay the course by certain lobbies, are “ice-cream machines that churn out different flavors (sic) upon request at a dozen bases”. From the Washington Times, via Tom Raworth, read it, weep and laugh.

Lastly, and carrying on in a comedic, gossipy vein, Overheard in New York is always worth a few minutes…