Another Big Day for Me!

[Burnin' oil]

Originally Posted by Moses

Thus ending the common assumption that all Sox fans are uneducated miscreants. (This comes from a Raider fan.)

And this ends the common assumption that Raider fans can't spell.

CJ,
I hope you let us all know how to get a copy. Congratulations.

[JCF]

That's great CJ.
But you realize that by trashing the lunatics at both fringes there won't be many here that will be nice to you after they read the book.

[M.D. Holloway]

provided any of us can understand it

[craigster59]

Will it have pictures?

[scottmandue]

What are these "books" that you all speak of?



Congratulations CJ!

[rammstein]

Hopefully they will make a movie out of it. Make sure it stars Christopher Lambert (Highlander). He rocks.

Also, the star chick should be the chick from Myth Busters.

[CJFusco]

We are thinking Christopher Walken as Orwell, Woody Allen as Norman Podhoretz, and Russell Crowe as Christopher Hitchens

[911Rob]

Ha, Ha.

Congrats Winner! You dun good.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Congratulations, sounds like a great read and I imagine a lot of fun researching and composing! will it be used in the classroom and/or larger part of academia or general population?

University Book store?
University Library?
Barnes & Noble?

[DonDavis]

Dood, u rok!




Ahh, the era of texting. Writers around the world cringe.

[pwd72s]

Yeah. How can I, part of the unwashed masses, buy this book?

[CJFusco]

Originally Posted by Shaun 84 Targa

Congratulations, sounds like a great read and I imagine a lot of fun researching and composing! will it be used in the classroom and/or larger part of academia or general population?

University Book store?
University Library?
Barnes & Noble?

That all depends on demand, really. It will be sent to all the major literary journals for review, and notices will be sent to all the major bookstore chains. If there are a lot of pre-orders for it on amazon.com, or if Universities show interest (I am fairly sure it will make it onto a couple Trinity College syllibi, considering that my thesis advisor teaches Orwell there), it might make it into major book stores.

In any case, it will be available on amazon.

[CJFusco]

To pique interest, this is the lead I wrote for the proposal package:

"“It is… no small thing to have the greatest political writer of the age on one’s side: it gives confidence, authority and weight to one’s own political views.”

These lines, written by Norman Podhoretz about George Orwell, seem, at first blush, to be accurate and concise. If Podhoretz does have Orwell on his side, then Podhoretz’s own political views are instantly granted considerable credibility. It is difficult to allow Podhoretz this credibility, however, when pundits on the completely opposite side of the political spectrum are making the exact same claim: namely, that, in terms of political views, George Orwell is one of them.

If one follows the line of academic conversation between literary critics on just about any significant piece of literature, one will invariably find a reception history rife with disagreement and variable interpretation. The confusing and often contradictory reception history of George Orwell’s work, however, poses a problem which is significantly more pressing and severe than academic squabbling over the semantics of a single line of poetry by Pound or Eliot. Orwell’s writings and indeed Orwell himself have been claimed as inspiration over the decades by politically-leaning literary minds from both sides of the political spectrum.

If Podhoretz is correct, and Orwell is worth claiming because having him on one’s side gives weight to one’s argument, this poses a problem because those who attempt to claim Orwell as their patron saint have done so for selfish reasons, in order to solidify their own political credibility. This situation does not seem terribly problematic on its own terms; what is truly troublesome about this situation is that many critics and politicians have occasionally evoked the man’s name and his text inaccurately – or in a way that misrepresents what Orwell had written – in order to manipulate the minds of their audience. When both sides claim the same man for disparate reasons, of course, both sides cannot be representing the writer completely accurately. Viewed through the lens of his own reception history, the real George Orwell has become obscured by a fog of shifting images and intentional misrepresentations.

But what is it about Orwell that appeals to opposite ends of the political spectrum? How could both the political Left and the political Right possibly make a compelling case that Orwell would stand among them in the contemporary era? And what is it about Orwell makes him a figure worth fighting over? Our Orwell, Right or Left will take a look at Orwell’s academic and cultural reputation during the writer’s life and in the decades since his death in order to find the truth through the fog. The book will take a look at the claims for Orwell, and juxtapose these claims with the author’s own writing in order to discern whether it is the Left or the Right who holds a convincing claim to the father of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm."

[BRPORSCHE]

Dude, major congrats. That is one heck of an accomplishment!

[gassy]

Congrats CJ. We're all proud of you for sure! What a year for you--Bosox, Pats, Celts lookin' great...Whoo hoo for you!

Christian.

[CJFusco]

Originally Posted by gassy

Congrats CJ. We're all proud of you for sure! What a year for you--Bosox, Pats, Celts lookin' great...Whoo hoo for you!

Christian.

Yup. It's funny how life works; last week was an AWFUL week - it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. This week, so far, has been a complete 180 - and it isn't just the book deal, either. Things are looking up.

[Dottore]

That's a very nice hook for your proposal package.

It occurs to me that you could substitute some other names there for Orwell, and write an entire series from a similar perspective. Kafka and Melville come to mind – but I'm sure there are others.

[CJFusco]

Originally Posted by Dottore

That's a very nice hook for your proposal package.

It occurs to me that you could substitute some other names there for Orwell, and write an entire series from a similar perspective. Kafka and Melville come to mind – but I'm sure there are others.

Well yes, of course - and pretty much every writer who has added to the canon or the lexicon.

What sets Orwell apart is that politicians and talking heads are STILL accusing people of using "Orwellian tactics," warning that "Big Brother is watching" whenever questions of censorship or surveilance enter into public discourse. Some of these nods are wholly appropriate, but all too many are intentional misrepresentations that reek of the same kind of manipulation that Orwell is warning AGAINST in 1984...

Hence my book

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I would do a Kafka version next just so you could sit back in a dark coffee shop, black turtleneck and beanie with some cute blonde chicks swooning all around, take a drag on a smoke and say something deep using "Kafkaesque" in the sentence while simultaneously squashing a bug on the floor.

[CJFusco]

Nah. I'm no existentialist... unlike the beatnik you describe, I am not filled with, (french accent) what is the word, ennui