Uh, maybe you don’t understand

Via Sarah Weinman, Kafka’s porn stash has finally been revealed, and it’s a little… well, check out the headline again. Apparently, scholars have been trying to hide this because Kafka is considered a demigod who received all necessary satisfaction from writing about nightmarish bureaucracy and existential dread. Yeah, that makes sense. Of course, I think it’s unfair for anyone, including myself, to assume that just because he had some hardcore stuff he was really into it. The internet has allowed our curiosities to extend to the nastiest stuff ever while easily purifying ourselves with a quick history erase. Just because he happened to hold on to these things doesn’t mean he was a freak. And to the academic James Hawes who says the shots of girl-on-girl action are “quite unpleasant”- I think you’re on your own with that one, my man.

If you’re looking for more Kafka talk that won’t be appearing in Penthouse Forum, here is Scott dishing about some quotes and fragments of stories.

I dribbled a little mud on Tao Lin the other day, but now he is my hero. Maybe. He has sold 60% of the royalties for his next book to anyone willing to fork over dough and made a cool twelve grand. The whole thing seemed to be tongue in cheek so he was able to retain his cred and make a bunch of money up front and get publicity. So, that’s cool. There is still a part of me that wishes the guy would just write instead of updating his blog all the time, but that’s the part of me that forgets I haven’t written a book and still need a job like a sucker. So yeah, nice going.

If you don’t get enough book info from me, you’re ungrateful and you’ll miss me when I’m gone. If this place is fine but you want to start dating some four eyes who will call you John Gardner in bed, then via Enter the Octopus here are 100 sites that will help. And I’m sorry you’re so lonely.

Booksquare wants us to believe they saw four people with Kindles. I like Booksquare aside from all the lying. Also, while I don’t doubt that there are two to three people in the world that own these things, there is only one person who has “great interest” in the Kindle.

Two Stranger articles- one on Alive in Necropolis, which is half a review and half a talk on genre, and one on the Twilight series which is half a talk on sex and half incredulity.

And finally, via The Elegant Variation, Horacio Castellanos Moya (who apparently lives in a tree) is finally seeing a novel published in English, Senselessness, and Mark has posted the entire first chapter. As is mentioned, dead Bolano loved him, and that probably means something. Also, the first chapter is really quite fantastic. None of that “The wind dimpled the rusted pines on the last day of Fall” crap. You’re knee deep right away. Read it.

Posted Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:31:29 and filed under Shane, Writing, Awards, Authors, Writers. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.