(no subject)

[proximoception]

Hart Crane gets his Library of America volume this Autumn, too. Most of the page count must be letters.

Comments

[princenarcissus.livejournal.com]

Where did you hear about this (and the new Bloom anthology)? I couldn't find anything on the LOA website. I adore this series . . .

Who do you think deserves a new LOA volume or two?

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I love those books too--only downside is they're so elegant you're almost afraid to read them.

For some reason Amazon gets news of these products many months before their own website does. Search by publisher or the author's name and hit "sort by publication date", basically. Another Autumn one of interest is the third volume of Roth, which has his first great masterpiece in it, My Life as a Man.

The glaring omissions so far have to do with copyright, presumably: Dickinson's works, Hemingway's stories, T.S. Eliot, Ralph Ellison. I'd like to see Melville's and E.A. Robinson's poems get in, but they're doubtless low priority. Who else...surely they'll do Katherine Anne Porter within a few years, and Faulkner's stories. William Cullen Bryant they should do and won't; they probably think they did justice to all the Firesides with the c. 50 pp each in their 19th century poetry volumes--which are a treasure trove, by the way. Dorothy Parker would sell well. I guess Emerson's letters and journals are a bit outside the scope of the project, which seems to focus on complete works. Cabell and Jim Thompson deserve distinction, among genre writers. And they *need* to give at least five more 900 page volumes for Bloom anthologies: short stories, novellas, dramas, poems.

The American writers I feel most personal affection for are Elizabeth Bishop and John Crowley. Not holding my breath on either!

Crowley

[paris-hat.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see your high praise for Crowley. I adore his fiction, just taught "The Green Child" in the medieval lit part of an English survey course, and bought a bunch of _Girlhoods_ for friends. A powerful story! You know about this, right? http://www.littlebig25.com/

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I sure do, and am subscribed. Sadly they didn't make their quota by March, though, and are giving themselves a one year extension. Hope it all pans out.

Girlhood's great. Green Child's one of the few stories I didn't really get, except as another Gnostic fable. Was this a real medieval legend?

[paris-hat.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was a real medieval legend, though I should ask medievalists more about that. I was teaching it in relation to the Prioress's Tale, which, although a lot more violent, treats issues centered on childhood and alienation and xenophobia in interestingly similar and different ways. Yeah, it reads very much as a fable.