“independent scholar” steven moore is writing a history of the novel
steven moore with felipe alfau and ms. of Chromos; Queens, NYC, May 1991
someone give steven moore a wikipedia entry! michael dirda has one.
steven moore–one of our most insightful critics, who was senior editor at the review of contemporary fiction and dalkey–is writing a book about the history of the novel. i’ll read it before i read anything by james wood. moore’s famously championed gaddis–but also vollman, ronald firbank, felipe alfau, william gass, carol maso and many others.
me, i seem these days to like my books short and elegantly collapsed from drug-overuse. not moore: “I quickly gravitated to huge novels like The Recognitions, The Sot-Weed Factor, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, novels you could lose yourself in for weeks, and study for a lifetime. (It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I also like Wagner’s and Glass’ operas.) I do like some writers known for short novels—Firbank, Spackman, Markson, Ducornet—but generally I like ‘em big and brainy.”
i swear i saw that he had a webpage of his own, but i can’t find it any more. [found it–thanks to victoria harding.] stumbled across this interview which has the above quote and where he also reveals this about his upcoming history:
hear friggin hear.
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moore’s latest review: on 2666
Your memory didn’t fail you: Steven Moore’s web site has a new URL at its own domain, http://www.stevenmoore.info, so new it isn’t showing up on search engines yet, and other links to it probably are in need of correction here and there.
As I say on the site, it’s my tribute to him for his long years of championing William Gaddis and other innovative writers.
A nice synchronicity with this big-up of Gaddis: http://htmlgiant.com/?p=2002
I like Moore’s voice, it seems quite clean. Thanks for the tip.