Lit Bits Thursday

Aaah, the monstrous fiction class has subsumed the blog. So it goes.  But the literary world scribbles on.  Today we have Zoe Williams, in Guardian, smacking down V.S. Naipaul.

In book form, VS Naipaul's new-blossoming cantankerousness sounds quite droll. It will be quicker if I paraphrase. Jane Austen? Sucked. Anthony Powell? Bilge. Evelyn Waugh? Rubbish. Here is a person, you think, who has lived a long time in maybe a rather close atmosphere and has decided to open a window and enjoy himself. But then he went on the Today programme and, through the power of radio, revealed that this is not a person enjoying himself after all.

Williams also manages to work the term "sodding" into the article, which should be appreciated all by itself.

The Amazon region of Brazil apparently has quite a literary scene and you probably don't know that.

Meanwhile, in Wyoming, some people have nothing better to do than try to ban award-winning books.

And then there was my weekend...back up on the North Shore of Lake Superior again, this time a bit further up with a look at the fall colors just inland.



Above: Grand Marais, Minnesota, view from Artist Point. Note the low water level of Lake Superior, exposing rock previously underwater. Lake Superior is in the midst of the lowest water levels in over 80 years.


Another view of low water at Artist Point.





Above: Two views of fall color at Moose Mountain, in Lutsen, Minnesota on the North Shore of Lake Superior.