Bridge fiction editor Mike Newirth passes along this note about a new reading series kicking off on Wednesday night:

On 11/2/05, BRIDGE is pleased to inaugurate “Readings at Nova Lounge,” an irregular series featuring all manner of experimental writing. We have two exciting readers to start off: novelist Mark von Schlegell and poet Garin Cycholl.

An American expatriate in Germany, Mark von Schlegell’s novel Venusia is the second volume in a new series of sci-fi from the renowned publisher Semiotext(e), who term his work “a psychedellic weave of theory and pulp tradition.” Booklist calls Venusia an “absurdist blending of fantasy and cutting-edge sf that never fails to entertain and proclaims von Schlegell to be a promising new voice in the genre(s).”

Garin Cycholl teaches writing and literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he also works as co-editor of Near South, a journal of experimental poetry, fiction, and drama. His recent work has appeared with Exquisite Corpse and New American Writing. His book-length poem Blue Mound to 161 was just published by Pavement Saw Press. Luis Urrea calls it “beautiful and harsh, as haunting as a ghost story, and even-almost reluctantly-lyrical, this grand American song is fresh and powerful… [This] book feels essential.”

The reading will occur at 6:30 PM on Wed. 11/2, at the NOVA Space, 840 W. Washington in Chicago. Complimentary beverages and copies of BRIDGE will be available (while supplies last). We hope to see you there. Indeed, considering that this event came together at the last minute, we would appreciate your assistance in forwarding or posting the listing for this reading to all your favorite online friends.

Literary notes from the Chicago papers in recent days:

* In the Tribune Sunday Magazine, Julia Keller has a long profile Margaret Atwood.

* Also in the Trib, an announcement (though the news was released a while ago) that Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead won this year’s Tribune-sponsored Heartland Literary Award for fiction. The ceremony is on Sunday and open to the public.

* The Sun-Times struck out on Sunday, with not a single item of literary interest. Although a week ago they did a profile/interview with John Updike that’s worth reading. Check the ending, though: “The author agreed that some of the best writing today is coming out of Hollywood.” I think the author “agreed” out of politeness. I try to be pretty particular about the films I see, and even those are almost all bad, and the writing is usually the worst thing about them. But you may disagree.

I’m still getting a huge kick out of TLS editor Peter Stothard’s blog. Just by coincidence, last week he offered an eyewitness report on the mood among Chicagoans at O’Hare following the Sox victory. Pretty amusing, though I must courteously disallow the term “smug.”

By the way, isn’t it a shame that, with so many actor-knights, we’ve only one blogger-knight? (Stothard, that is.) I’m willing to put myself forward, if no one objects.

I defer to Mark Scroggins in his judgment that Fritz Senn is the greatest living Joyce critic. I’m too ignorant to know the difference. I do know, however, that Senn is a fine old gentleman. Four or five years ago, on a whim, I dropped by the Joyce Foundation in Zurich. Senn happened to be in, and he chatted with me for almost an hour, showing me his cabinet of curios (Joyce’s walking stick, a Joyce death mask) and inviting me to stop by later for the Finnegans Wake reading group. Nice guy.

Senn told me how many years it took the group to read FW aloud, but I can’t recall the number. I do remember his telling me that they were reading the last few pages that very night. And that they were starting again the following week.

Kind of amusing: When I was walking up the stairs to the Foundation’s offices, I ran into one of the staff. I explained that I was an American in town for a visit and wanted to see the Joyce archive while I was there. She asked me how long I was staying in Zurich. When I told her only two days, she said: “You haven’t been to the Mann archive? Well then, go right now! We are open tomorrow but they are not!”

Not sure how I stumbled across this, but it’s a pretty impressive fund of author quotations, from James Agee to Emile Zola.

See Richard Nash for a thoughtful challenge to the position taken by the publishing community in the tussle over Google Print (via Ed). For my part, I’m surprised no one has made any Dead Souls jokes. Perhaps I expect too much of the book business.

“Well, you see how it is, my dear woman? Now, only take into consideration the fact that you won’t have to give any more presents, for now I shall pay for the dead serfs.  I, and not you: I assume all responsibilities. I will even have the deed prepared at my expense, do you understand me?”

The old woman became thoughtful. She saw that the transaction really seemed to be a profitable one for herself, but it was too novel and untried; and so she began to feel very much afraid lest our friend should cheat her in this sale. He was a suspicious character, for he had arrived, God knows whence, and at night time too.

“Well, my dear woman, shall we strike the bargain?” asked Chichikov.

“Really, my friend, I never sold any dead people before. I sold some live ones two years ago – two girls to the protopope for a hundred roubles each; and he was very glad and grateful: they turned out splendid workers: they even weave napkins.”

“Well, but the question isn’t one of living serfs – God be with them! – I ask for dead ones.”

“Really, I am afraid lest it should occasion me a loss in some way. Perhaps you are deceiving me, my father; perhaps they — they are worth more.”

“Listen, my good woman—what a woman you are! How can they be worth anything? They are dust. Do you understand? Simply dust. Take any useless, trivial thing, for example, even a simple rag—and the rag has a value; it can at least be sold for a paper-mill: but those dead serfs are good for nothing. Now, tell me yourself, what are they good for?”

“That is quite true. They are good for nothing at all, and only one thing deters me, that they are dead.”

What better and more characteristic way to mark GRJ’s third anniversary than to take a loooong hiatus?

Anyway, I will be back soon, but in the meantime I’ve been doing a little posting over at the LBC site this week, on the subject of Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers.

Also, you’ll note that my events list is still complete and up-to-date. There’s almost a frightening amount of literary activity in Chicago this time of year. Go!

And when I say go, I also mean: Go Sox.

Where’ve I been? I’ve been looking for you! Here’s what I’ve been pondering/reading during my extended absence:

* Wayne Booth. OGIC and the New York Times inform us of his passing. Part V of the bibliography of his Rhetoric of Fiction (”Gallery of Unreliable Narrators and Reflectors”) is a great little reading list.

* Michael Hoffman. Mark Thwaite has an interview, in which we learn Hoffman has recently translated Thomas Bernhard’s Frost and that James Buchan is one of his favorite writers. I picked up High Latitudes at the library today.

* William Shakespeare. Ellis Sharp reminded me to add WS to my multi-volume list. (I had excluded drama.) Sharp also notes that he loves the sonnets (check), dislikes Helen Vendler’s Shakespeare (check), and admires John Berryman’s (check).

* John Berryman (1). Berryman says Shakespeare’s five best sonnets are 18, 30, 73, 106, and 116 (check). But really, I can’t part with fewer than twenty. Here’s my extra fifteen: 12, 29, 33, 55, 64, 65, 71, 91, 94, 104, 129, 130, 138, 141, 146.

* John Berryman (2). Berryman also says that the greatest sonnet in the English language is Milton’s “To Mr. Cyriack Skinner Upon His Blindness.” I don’t see it.

* Christopher Middleton. A focus of the most recent Chicago Review, Middleton is lecturing and reading in Chicago in February. If you go to one event in 2006 …

* Don Cherry. “Grapes” delivered a truly spectacular stream of nonsense in his 2005-06 debut last Saturday, with this capper: “You know why you don’t know? BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW.” (Not online yet, dammit.) Hockey season is here.

* Raymond Federman. I missed both his local appearances, but Archambeau shares some tidbits from the college paper.

* Mark Woods. His incredible blog turned five last week. GRJ marks three years a week from Sunday.

* Peter Stothard. The new blog is odd but interesting. By the way, is the TLS in danger? I’d be upset. (via Bookish).

Here are a few lit-related titles showing at the 41st Chicago International Film Festival, which opens on Thursday:

* Fateless, adapted from the novel by Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész.

* Entre Ses Mains, based on Dominique Barbéris’s novel Les Kangourous.

* Innocence, adapted from a novella by Frank Wedekind.

* Everlasting Regret, based on Wang Anyi’s novel Changhen Ge.

* Gabrielle, based on Joseph Conrad’s short story, “The Return.”

* Bee Season, from the novel by Myla Goldberg.

Last Sunday, ALN’s Terry Teachout and Laura Demanski did a segment on WBEZ’s Hello Beautiful! focusing on Stephen Lang’s Beyond Glory, currently playing at the Goodman Theater. It’s a nice segment featuring some great highlights from the play, which Lang adapted from Larry Brown’s book Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words. Lang also appears. Listen to it here.