John Domini

The Bad Staggers On

pornography can, being like the stain on a napkin, exactly the size of themselves. Hasn’t everybody on occasion wished for badder books? Roland Barthes famously remarked that he wrote books because he didn’t like the books he read. When younger I thought he must be talking about the books reviewers called bad, but later I realized books like that rarely inspire anybody. Is badness, at bottom, more like incompetence or like evil? Ronald Sukenick once confided to me his ambition to write books no one would know how to judge either bad or good. I feel that. I dream of the book so horrendous it denies me peace, tracks me down in my haven, and compels me to vomit rejoinders. To think that the author of How It Is (1964) won the Nobel Prize! Bad writing has its muse, its geniuses.

A Multiplicity of Voices

When it comes to Israel, maps are rapidly changing and, in many cases, are used by individuals and groups all over the world, both within and outside of Israel, as a tool to make a point, political or otherwise. This topic introduces learners to the concept of map as “story-teller” and provides them with tools to analyze and choose maps of Israel that reflect perspectives they wish to convey and that, hopefully, reflect their relationship with Israel.

Who's In? Who's Out?

July–August 2011 The passing of time provides clarity and perspective on literary art for which there is no substitute. It removes the distractions of writerly personality, and foregrounds the writerly products. Today’s fashion becomes yesterday’s failure; yesterday’s failure becomes today’s fashion. Overlooked or overrated—literary and critical gems are only visible with hindsight. Consider all the emerging authors prognosticated by critics and writers to become the next James Joyce or Samuel Beckett or Jorge Luis Borges and how few have risen to the accolades. Or remember today may be viewed against the relief of time. Such acts are more than just critical games. Rather, they are important exercises in helping direct our current writing and critical energies. American Book Review wants to know what the writing and criticism worlds will be like ten years from now. What authors will be in? What type of writing will be out? What poets will have faded, and who will be high up on our radar? What will be the “in” approach to criticism, and what will look like an historical artifact? those who became recognized as masters only in the slow brew of critical time—writers like Franz Kafka, Felipe Alfau, Roberto Bolaño, and Raymond Federman. One gauge of a literary generation’s power is its ability to exhibit critical foresight. To provide sharp prognostications of fiction’s future and the trajectory of current writers. To put hype and marketing aside and focus on the impact of writing and criticism. This highly speculative endeavor is perhaps the most difficult act in contemporary letters. Looking forward to a place where the writing and criticism

Violence and the Sacred

They moved from signs and tokens to the penalties—promises that one would never reveal the signs and tokens, even at the peril of ones own life. If you were put in a position where you were forced to reveal the signs, you were apparently supposed to kill yourself. [The bride] was made to draw her hand across her throat as if it were a knife. She was made to pull her hand across her chest and then let both hands fall, as if she had opened her chest to let blood spill down her ribs. Later still, the back of her thumb traveled symbolically from one hip to another, slitting open her loins.