Category: {books}

Books

A literary event: new Thomas Pynchon

MutedPosthorn.jpgNew Thomas Pynchon novel to be released
Mysterious author’s first novel in almost a decade comes out in December

NEW YORK—Thomas Pynchon fans, the long wait is apparently over: His first novel in nearly a decade is coming out in December.

But details, as with so much else about the mysterious author of such postmodern classics as “V.” and “Gravity’s Rainbow,” have proved a puzzle.

Since the 1997 release of “Mason & Dixon,” a characteristically broad novel about the 18th-century British explorers, new writings by Pynchon have been limited to the occasional review or essay, such as his introduction for a reissue of George Orwell’s “1984.” He has, of course, made no media appearances or allowed himself to be photographed, not counting a pair of cameos in “The Simpsons,” for which he is sketched in one episode with a bag over his head.

This much is known about the new book: It’s called “Against the Day” and will be published by Penguin Press. It will run at least 900 pages and the author will not be going on a promotional tour.

“That will not be happening, no,” Penguin publicist Tracy Locke told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Like J.D. Salinger (who at one point Pynchon was rumored to be), the 69-year-old Pynchon is the rare author who inspires fascination by not talking to the press. Alleged Pynchon sightings, like so many UFOs, have been common over the years, and his new book has inspired another round of Pynchon-ology on Slate and other Internet sites.

Late last week, the book’s description—allegedly written by Pynchon—was posted on Amazon.com. It reads in part:

“Spanning the period between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

“With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.”

The description was soon pulled from the site, with Penguin denying any knowledge of its appearance. According to Amazon.com spokesman Sean Sundwall, Penguin requested the posting’s removal “due to a late change in scheduling on their part. We expect the description to be reposted to the book’s detail page in the next day or two.”

Locke declined comment on why the description was taken down, but did reluctantly confirm two details provided by Sundwall, that the book is called “Against the Day” (no title is listed on Amazon.com) and that Pynchon indeed wrote the blurb, which warns of more confusion to come.

“Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur,” Pynchon writes. “If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction. Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.”

New work for July

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This new Savoy volume was an exhausting task, 608pp with illustrations on nearly every page. The book is another study of Savoy’s long career as publishers with many digressions examining the various maverick and often unsavoury characters that have fuelled David Britton’s books and the wider Savoy corpus, from real and imagined fascists to pulp writers, movie cowboys, PJ Proby and sundry rock’n’rollers. It forms a loose trilogy with two earlier books, Robert Meadley’s A Tea Dance at Savoy and DM Mitchell’s A Serious Life.

For the design I wanted to avoid the obvious that the title would imply and play around with a different brand of totalitarian imagery, namely the iconography of Soviet Russia and its accompanying propaganda. We used Jonathan Barnbrook’s Newspeak font for all of the titles and headings, a great design that has the right look while still being contemporary. The cover and interior chapter spreads borrow elements of the Soviet style, with some nods towards the general Bauhaus and Art Deco designs of the 1920s and ’30s. It was an enjoyable project even if it did seem interminable at times.

Tressants: the Calvino Hotel

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In the vestibule, candles are arranged in the shape of the constellation Aquarius.

Hotel Tressants in Menorca
ArchitectureWeek
21 January 2004

When Italo Calvino wrote his 1972 novel about magical cities based on places he imagined Marco Polo might have visited, he was probably not thinking specifically of the Spanish island of Menorca (Minorca).

The city of Sophronia is made up of two half-cities. In one there is the great roller coaster with its steep humps, the carousel with its chain spokes, the Ferris wheel of spinning cages, the death-ride with crouching motorcyclists, the big top with the clump of trapezes hanging in the middle. The other half-city is of stone and marble and cement, with the bank, the factories, the palaces, the slaughterhouse, the school, and all the rest. One of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary… And so every year the day comes when the workmen remove the marble pediments, lower the stone walls, the cement pylons… – Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.

But when Menorquin architect Fernando Pons Vidal and Italian designer Chiara Fabiani conceived a “new” hotel in the renovation of old townhouses on that Mediterranean island, they had Calvino’s Invisible Cities foremost in their design imaginations.

The eight-room hotel was recently completed in the ancient town of Ciutadella, on narrow streets near the cathedral. It was built from two adjacent 200-year-old houses. But the site has been occupied far longer than that. During excavation, archaeologists found human remains thought to date back to ancient Roman times.

In renovating the aged structure, the architect retained old stone arches and vaults, but also brought in modern-day steel – though with substantial difficulty, given the restricted site.

Tressants (three saints) takes its name from the three streets that surround the hotel in the heart of the city. From the outside, the building resembles a rather ordinary townhouse for this part of town, with old terra cotta roof tiles and repaired facades of local stone. Once inside, however, the differences are striking.

Modern finishes and hand-painted frescoes were applied to recall both the city’s history and Calvino’s tales. In the reception area, candles are arranged on one wall in the shape of the constellation of Aquarius. There’s a window in the floor for viewing the illuminated pool below. An interior staircase is topped by a cupola with skylights.

Down a few steps from the entry are the main salon with a handmade floor-to-ceiling fireplace and the “comedor” dining area with arched ceilings. In the vaulted cellar, the spa features a 7- by 46-foot (2- by 14-meter) pool with an overflow edge along the full length. It is illuminated by color-changing, fiber-optic lights.

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Throughout Tressants’ interior are fixtures of natural materials, designed by local craftsmen. Custom ironwork was created for the doors, balconies, and terraces. The rooftop terrace offers views of the cathedral, the old town, and the neighboring, more heavily touristed island of Mallorca.

Guest Rooms by the Book

On the middle floors of the five-level, 11,000-square-foot (1000-square-meter) hotel are the eight Calvino-inspired guestrooms. They are each decorated differently, representing one of the “Invisible Cities.”

For instance, Calvino writes:

“The traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down… the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms’ interiors with ceilings and floors…”

The suite representing the city of Valdrada features doors with blue underneath and yellow above, with stars in the children’s room, and a large painting behind the bed.

Also:

“The city of Zenobia… though set on dry terrain, it stands on high pilings, and the houses are of bamboo and zinc, with many platforms and balconies placed on stilts at various heights, crossing one another, linked by ladders and hanging sidewalks…”

“…If you ask an inhabitant of Zenobia to describe his vision of a happy life, it is always a city like Zenobia that he imagines, with its pilings and its suspended stairways, a Zenobia perhaps quite different, a-flutter with banners and ribbons, but always derived by combining elements of that first model.”

Artistic features in the ceiling and floor of Zenobia room reflect these sentiments symbolically, while the level changes and balustrade reflect the Calvino description literally.

In 1993, Menorca was declared a Biosphere Reserve, giving the entire island an environmental protection status. With architecture, environment, historic rock quarries, and colorful festivals, it is a special place to visit.

Update: Seems like the hotel website lapsed so here’s the Internet Archive mirror with additional photos.