"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli
"Part of what you're taking in when you read the NYTBR section, in other words, is a lot of preening and class snobbery. This matters a bit because it affects what's produced. I've noticed, for instance, that Italian-Americans often don't do well in the respectable lit-fict world. Despite talent and ambition, they're often shunned, and they often don't last long. I have a theory about why. It's that there's something about the Italian-American thang -- the rituals and courtliness, the often working-class and/or street backgrounds, the macho, the suspicion of intellectuality, and the love of textures, melody, and hand-crafting -- that makes the lit set wince. It's a thang that often works spendidly in showbiz: in music, performing, and movies. It can work well in the genre-writing world as well. Ed McBain, one of the giants of American crime writing, was born Salvatore Lombino. But the lit world, I'm afraid, finds the Italian-American thang crude and primitive. As a result, there's 'way too little Italian-Americanness present on the lit-fict shelves."
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"Part of what you're taking in when you read the NYTBR section, in other words, is a lot of preening and class snobbery. This matters a bit because it affects what's produced. I've noticed, for instance, that Italian-Americans often don't do well in the respectable lit-fict world. Despite talent and ambition, they're often shunned, and they often don't last long. I have a theory about why. It's that there's something about the Italian-American thang -- the rituals and courtliness, the often working-class and/or street backgrounds, the macho, the suspicion of intellectuality, and the love of textures, melody, and hand-crafting -- that makes the lit set wince. It's a thang that often works spendidly in showbiz: in music, performing, and movies. It can work well in the genre-writing world as well. Ed McBain, one of the giants of American crime writing, was born Salvatore Lombino. But the lit world, I'm afraid, finds the Italian-American thang crude and primitive. As a result, there's 'way too little Italian-Americanness present on the lit-fict shelves."
Anybody we know??
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