A notification from WordPress reminded me that this quixotic, Google-averse site turned 1 last month, with zero fanfare. The mission—which was cobbled together during last year’s Super Bowl between the Patriots and the Falcons—remains the same: to offer a forward operating base for supporters of Evan Dara, with an emphasis on collecting the articles, links,Continue reading “The State of the Evan Dara Affinity”
Category Archives: Evan Dara
American Literature in Transition: 1990-2000
Today’s quick Twitter thread on the publication of American Literature in Transition: 1990-2000, featuring Stephen Burn’s chapter on “Encyclopedic Fictions,” which offers a moderately deep dive into Evan Dara’s The Lost Scrapbook. The collection also includes contributions from Dara scholars Jeremy Green and Patrick O’Donnell, although they don’t cover him this time out. It appears thatContinue reading “American Literature in Transition: 1990-2000”
A Podcast on The Lost Scrapbook
Out of the estimated 250,000 podcasts that make up the podsphere, and the over 8 million episodes they’ve collectively generated, I don’t believe any have placed The Lost Scrapbook under the spotlight. Until now. The Tale Told By an Idiot podcast devoted episode 5 of their fresh endeavor to Evan Dara and TLS, and do it justice,Continue reading “A Podcast on The Lost Scrapbook”
Charlie Harris
WGLT reported that Charlie Harris passed away, which is hard news for anyone who gives a fig about good writing and provocative literature. While Charlie may be best known as the person with the good sense to hire David Foster Wallace at Illinois State University, he championed many other sages and stylists who were/are aheadContinue reading “Charlie Harris”
A Reading of The Lost Scrapbook
While updating the resources for this site, I included an expanded entry for a series of posts from a pseudonymous blogger named Ba Jin. Back in the summer of 2015, he offered a memorable chronicle of his first reading of The Lost Scrapbook, which is laced with sharp insights and the inevitable questions that ariseContinue reading “A Reading of The Lost Scrapbook”
Evergreen Eco-Fiction
This morning’s edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried a story which is all too familiar for fans of The Lost Scrapbook. Reporters unearthed documents showing that 13 million pounds of hazardous waste—”bead waste,” containing cadmium, chromium, lead and other heavy metals used in paint pigments—had been illegally stored in a weed-choked warehouse on aContinue reading “Evergreen Eco-Fiction”
One Mutual Sheaf
“O let me teach you how to knit again/
This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,/
These broken limbs again into one body;”
Satirizing Modernism
Emmett Stinson’s new book, Satirizing Modernism: Aesthetic Autonomy, Romanticism, and the Avant-Garde, comes out in June, and appears to be the first major critical work to wrestle with Evan Dara’s The Easy Chain, along with Thomas Love Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey, Wyndham Lewis’s The Apes of God, William Gaddis’s The Recognitions, and Gilbert Sorrentino’s Imaginative Qualities of ActualContinue reading “Satirizing Modernism”
Counterevidence
Earlier this year, I happened upon the audiobook of William Gaddis’s JR, a 37-hour tour de force narrated by Nick Sullivan which is essential listening for anyone seeking a deeper appreciation of this prescient radio tower of Babel. While I don’t absorb enough audiobooks to provide a trustworthy opinion, it’s clear why this title is so highlyContinue reading “Counterevidence”
Preparing for The Easy Chain
Without knowing exactly where to start, I’ll begin at the beginning and wend my way through this marvelous and baffling book, which contains some of the best prose of this millennium, along with savage stretches that test and exasperate even the most faithful readers. Like its perorative predecessor The Lost Scrapbook, The Easy Chain reveals new facetsContinue reading “Preparing for The Easy Chain”
The Evan Dara Affinity 