In Defence of Realism (1998 ) – Raymond Tallis
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Book by an unfavourable critic of postmodernism:

In Defence of Realism is a powerful indictment of the fog of bad philosophy and worse linguistics that has shrouded much contemporary literary theory and criticism. Raymond Tallis, one of the most important critics of post-Saussurean literary theory in the English-speaking world, examines the reasons often cited by critics and theorists for believing that realism in fiction is impossible and verisimilitude a mere literary “effect.” He trenchantly shows not only that the arguments of critics hostile to realism are invalid, but that even if they were sound, they would apply equally to anti-realist fiction, indeed to all intelligible discourse.

“A bracing counterblast to the post-modernizing gibberish of contemporary literary theory.” — The Spectator

See also: realism in literature

If you put a gun to my head — not that you would — and asked me whom I’d consider the greatest writer of the 20th century — not that asking my opinion is worth risking a police encounter — I’d say, ‘That’s easy, put the gun down. Maurice Blanchot.’ He’s both my favorite fiction writer and my favorite writer of what’s alternately dubbed philosophy or language theory. His ‘Death Sentence’ is either my favorite novel of all time, or it’s tied for favorite with Sade’s ‘120 Days of Sodom.’ To me, Blanchot is to the written text as Bresson is to the captured image, which is to say not so much the greatest at his chosen medium — obviously a ridiculous proposition — as he is an artist as singular, ruthless, pure, and infested with belief in the abilities of language as anyone who has ever tried their hand at writing. —Dennis Cooper

Some details about Dennis Cooper’s weekend:

I went to that American Writers Festival I mentioned, intending to hit a lot of the events. But I went to see the Peter Sotos (interviewed by Bruce Benderson) event and wound up just hanging out with them and Laurence Viallet of Editions Desordres and crew, which was great. Bruce is an old friend, but I’d never spent time with Peter before, and he’s a really nice guy. I also got to meet and talk to Gaspar Noe, who knows Peter, which was a thrill because, as you know, I’m a huge admirer of his films. —Dennis Cooper

From all this it would appear that Dennis Cooper is a thorough francophile.

Via The Reading Experience comes a list of some of the best works of fiction since 1990 hosted at Scott Esposito’s Conversational Reading.

Scott remarks:

this is not a response to The New York Times list. This idea has been circulating in my head since last November, and I first began collaborating with people on it back in March, long before I knew of the existence of the NYT list. I do, however, think that the two lists make for interesting juxtapositions and I encourage comparisons.

The list includes:

JM Coetzee, Arundhati Roy, David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, W.S. Sebald, Jose Saramago, Michael Ondaatje, Richard Power, Colson Whitehea, Norman Rus, Cynthia Ozic, William Gas, Kazuo Ishigur, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Angela Carter, Danzy Senna, George Saunders, Jonathan Franzen, Michel Houellebecq, William Gaddis, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Cunningham, Banana Yoshimoto, Jeffrey Eugenides, Richard Russo, A.S.Byatt, David Markson, John Berger, Mary Gaitskill and Haruki Murakami.

Digression: 1000 movies by NYT, the same, at Amazon.

Everyone knows that a good canon debate doesn’t get interesting until you reach the realm of the top 100. But by listing the top 1,000 movies, as the editors of The New York Times have done with this fat, readable collection of reviews, you get to skip all that huffing and puffing about quality and head straight for the fun. –Lyall Bush for Amazon

See also: lists