LMM: Final! Austen vs. Faulkner

After 62 death matches and six months of voting, we're finally down to the grand championship: Jane Austen versus William Faulkner! It was obvious from early on that Ms. Austen would be a juggernaut of literary prowess, but I must admit that I have consistently underestimated Faulkner's appeal. But he has defeated Henry James, Herman Melville, and Virginia Woolf, so maybe there's more to this Mississippi Mauler than meets the eye.

Also, if you please, let me know who was left off of this list? What great writers, or just your favorite, was cruelly excluded?

Austen v. Faulkner

The Best Things On The Internet

One of the other reasons why reasons why I decided to complete the "Literary March Madness" that we started in, um, March... :$.... was this video, that hopefully y'all have seen already one place or another, that Robyn showed me a little while back:



I saw this and I was all like, "OMG! This is exactly what I would do with my life if I had unlimited resources and if the constraints of space and time were of no matter!" But I can't, so the next best thing is creating imaginary competitions where famous writers fight each other to the death for my amusement.

That's the best thing on the internet right now. The second best thing is this:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Kevin Kline
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

How much would you pay to see a traveling, two-man, impromptu show starring Kevin Kline and Stephen Colbert? One million dollars, that's how much. (Also, I just found out that Kevin Kline got a Tony nomination for playing Falstaff. So he's probably thought about that one alot.)

LMM: Final Four (Why The F-* Not?)

Austen v. Dostoyevsky

Woolf v. Faulkner

LMM: Only Eight Remain

Thank you to everyone who has continued to vote in our literary tournament, especially as we start to head into the final straight away! We are about set to start the Elite Eight, and only the most elite of all writers have managed to make it to this point, which I will begin to post shortly. The first of these regional finals will be between #1 Jane Austen and #3 Charlotte Bronte. Frankly, Austen has been looking unbeatable so far in this tournament, winning her first three matches by a combined score of 24-4. Maybe Bronte will be able to slow her down a bit, but it will take a lot to oust her!

Beneath them on the bracket is the Russian showdown between #1 Leonid Tolstoy and #3 Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky has been rather dominant, with a score of 18-5 through the first three rounds, but he had a pretty tough time defeating Vladimir Nabokov. I was surprised by how well Nabokov did in this tournament. I may have mentioned this before, but Loilita is one of the few novels - hell, one of the few pieces of art - that I can read and simultaneously think to myself both, "This is an amazing and excellent work of art and craftsmanship," and "This is disgusting and I would rather not be reading it." Maybe some recent war movies like Platoon or Apocalypse Now, but even those can't maintain Lolita's level of poetry and horror.

This is kind of violating my own rule, but I am giving #8 Art Spiegelman the win over #12 Neil Gaiman. You see, I have actually been refraining from voting lately in order to prevent ties (so that, if I do vote, it is only to act as a tie-breaker), but in this case I was stupid and actually just forgot to vote. So I'm voting now, for Spiegelman. So he advances to the regional final against #2 Virginia Woolf, who just barely squeaked by Charles Dickens.

This means that there's just one more bracket to be filled out. Herman Melville is currently battling Franz Kafka, the Whale versus the Bug, both monstrously indescribable. Kafka actually owes a lot to Melville, especially from his existentialist-ish short story Bartleby the Scrivener. The winner of that match will face either William Faulkner or George Orwell. I have always heard that Orwell had originally wanted to call 1984 1948, because that was the year that he wrote it and that was the year it was about, but his publisher wouldn't have it and forced him to change the title. Because the Man can't handle the Truth, man.

LMM: Round 3 Update

I'm going to rapid-fire this one, the Heat and the Celtics are playing...


Still looking for a reason to vote? Well, how about drug of choice? Kesey had his LSD, Faulkner his whiskey, Balzac drank too much coffee, and I'd bet francs to farthings that Miss Jane Austen was a fan of laudanum....
Under the Influence - Drugs Used During Composition

Speaking of which... Austen continues her domination as she goes up against Willa Cather in round three, while Nathaniel Hawthorne takes on Charlotte Bronte in the undercard. I want to title this quartet as something like, "What is a woman's role in society?" but that sounds kinda lame and meaningless to me, because any novel that has women and society in it could conceivably fall into that category. But this bracket is filled by marked women, whether by sin (Hester Prynne), age and class (Elinor Dashwood), or family (Jane Eyre). *

We've got some exciting results to report as we move on into the Sweet Sixteen! A couple of upsets: James Joyce is the first 1 seed to fall to #8 Art Spiegelman 7-3. (Y'know, I can't recall anyone actually proclaiming that they enjoy reading Joyce...) Spiegelman will advance to meet another Cinderella, #12 Neil Gaiman, who upset #4 Lewis Carroll 7-3. Good news: The graphic novel is now an acceptable literary form as of right... now.

The other match-up in that region will be #2 Virginia Woolf versus #3 Charles Dickens. Both of these authors won their second round matches quite handily, and the winner will probably be favored to get all the way to the Final Four.

Finally, the second region has become over-run by the Russians. To my surprise, #1 Leo Tolstoy defeated #9 Harper Lee 7-4, and will advance to meet #4 Gustave Flaubert in the next round, who defeated #5 Thomas Mann 5-3. Below them, #7 Vladimir Nabokov ended #15 Flannery O'Connor's run 6-3, and will have an excellent and intriguing match next round against #3 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who beat #6 Jorge Luis Borges by a convincing 7-2.

Keep voting!

* I'm hoping that this statement will motivate Robyn to correct me. She says that Jane Eyre is marked more by obscurity and will, or maybe poverty and will. She also says that, "But she is still marked differently than the Dashwood sisters in the way that Charlotte Bronte is different from Jane Austen. In the end, Jane Eyre is able to get angry and get a job, which may be why Jane Eyre as so popular amongst 19th-century working class women. Though that can play into the Twilight trope of having the little, plain, virtuous women taming the tall, brooding Byronic type. And then, of course, there is the whole race/colonial issues of having the Creole wife locked in the attic. Everyone should read Jane Eyre."

Literary March Madness, Round 1 - Part 8

This is it! The final foursome of the first round, the last step before we really get into the meat of things in Round 2! And, in my opinion, we've saved some of a best matches for last. First up is #2 Henry James (The Golden Bowl) versus #15 Sherman Alexie (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven). Personally, these are two of my favorite authors, and it's tough for me to see one of them be eliminated in the first round. However, I think that the question that you ought to ask yourself when voting is this: Is America being pulled eastwards towards England and the continent, or to the west, into the amnesiac Pacific Ocean?

You don't get quite the same challenges of national identity in Stendahl (The Red and the Black) versus Heller (Catch-22) or Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury) versus Hesse (Steppenwolf). But what about Orwell versus Salinger?

James v. Alexie

Faulkner v. Hesse

Stendahl v. Heller

Orwell v. Salinger

Literary March Madness Round 1 - Part 7

Here we go on to the last of our four regions... This quartet is highlighted by perhaps the most anticipated of all of our first round matches - and by anticipated I mean that three different people have mentioned it to me - that between #5 Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis) and #12 Tony Kushner (Angels in America). There is a certain, ahem, poetic justice in this match-up; both authors are excellent satirists, concerned with the role of the individual in a certain society, and how the individual can retain his humanity in an inhuman world. I might give the edge to Kushner, though, because he's the only one of the two with an honorary degree from Bard College.

I am also very curious about the outcome of #8 Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) and #9 Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five). Two novels about how humans deal with total disaster, whether it be a hurricane wiping out the Black communities of Florida or the USAF blowing the shit out of Dresden. And for all of you who're hesitating about casting your vote for Goethe, but don't know who Giuseppi di Lampedusa is, here's a quote from Wikipedia about his novel The Leopard:

The novel was criticised around the time of its first publication by some literary critics for its straightforward "old fashioned" realism, a type of Stendhalian or Tolstoyan realism that particularly irritated neo-realists such as Elio Vittorini and Alberto Moravia. However, the novel was very popular among so-called common readers, as well as with prestigious foreign intellectuals such as Louis Aragon and E. M. Forster. In 1963 Il Gattopardo was made into a film, directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Finally, three more polls have closed, and, in three blow-outs, we have three more writers advance to Round Two: #11 Terry Pratchett, #1 Leonid Tolstoy, and #9 Harper Lee. Can't wait for that Lee versus Tolstoy match!

Thank you again for voting. Please tell your friends, and, if you're new to this blog, be sure to scroll down, as there are more matches to vote on below.

Melville v. Carver

Hurston v. Vonnegut

Goethe v. Lampedusa

Kafka v. Kushner

K

Literary March Madness: Round 1 - Part 6

This next quartet of match-ups is heavy with English modernists: Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh. It also has most of our Young Adult authors. Maybe it's a bit unfair, but we've got J.K. Rowling up against Philip Pullman in the first round. Who will be the champion of contemporary English fantasy lit? (If it's based on box-office receipts, then I guess there's no competition...) Of course, the winner of that match will get to face either Charles Dickens or Stella Gibbons, the author of Cold Comfort Farm in Round Two. So put on your best cockney accents and get voting!

In other news, we've got a few more Round One winners to announce: #2 Nathaniel Hawthorne and #3 Charlotte Bronte advance. Mansfield and Burgess ended in a tie. In an executive decision, Robyn and I decided that the win goes to Mansfield. A bit of the ultra-violence is all well and good and all, but it doesn't quite compare to subtle commentaries on early 20th Century class structure!

Woolf v. Forster

Waugh v. Baum

Dickens v. Gibbons

Rowling v. Pullman

Literary March Madness Round 1 - Part 5

OK! Mushing right into the Third Region of our bracket, we are confronted with several intriguing new match-ups. So far, no #16 has received even a single vote against a #1; will Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine) reverse that trend against James Joyce (Ulysses)? Terry Pratchett earned an upset in the first round - will his co-author of Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, do likewise against Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage)? Lots of excitement still to come!

In other news, polls have officially closed on our first batch of matches. No upsets so far: #1 Jane Austen, #8 Emily Bronte, #4 Mikhail Bulgakov, and #5 Willa Cather have all secured victories and will advance to the second rounds.

Keep voting! Tell your friends to vote! Vote early, vote often!

Joyce v. Erdrich

Spiegelman v. Lewis

Carroll v. Hornby

Maugham v. Gaiman

Literary Madness Round 1 - Part 4

I apologize for any sense of repetition that this blog may be developing, but I'm trying to keep the Literary March Madness matches coming down the tubes as quickly as possible so that we might be able to move on to Rounds 2 and 3 in a timely fashion. Cab suggested that we provide a little more background info for some of our authors, such as links to their works or Wikipedia page or something. I'm not quite sure where to fit this in yet, but I'll try to be a little more helpful in the future.

As for our last batch of matches, well, they're all turning into routes, with Tolstoy, Terry Pratchett, and Harper Lee all leading by wide margins. In other news, Emily Bronte still leads Jhumpa Lahiri by a single vote with only more day of open polls left. The tension! Now, here are some more match-ups from our Second Region to vote on:

Flaubert v. Ellison

Mann v. Lhu Hsun

Balzac v. O'Connor

Nabokov v. Wodehouse

Dostoyevsky v. Diaz

Borges v. Satrapi

Literary March Madness, Round 1 - Part 3

Thanks to everyone who has been voting in our Literary March Madness! Today we move into the second of our four "regions," but there is still time to vote on some of our earlier matches. It's looking like Jane Austen will win in a cakewalk over Derek Walcott, the Caribbean author of Omeros. A little more surprising to me is Bulgakov's sizable lead over Iris Murdoch. There are several Russian authors in the tournament; is this a sign of things to come? There are a couple of nail-biters going on, too, that could be settled by just one vote: #7 Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange) vs. #10 Katherine Mansfield (The Garden Party and other short stories, and an associate of the Bloomsbury Group)and #8 Emily Bronte vs. #9 Jhumpa Lahiri. So keep voting, and if you've already voted, try leaving a comment persuading others to vote your way.

So here's your next round of matches:

Plath v. Pratchett

Tolstoy v. Ha Jin

Calvino v. Lee

March Madness Round 1 - Part 2

Hawthorne v. Proulx

Burgess v. Mansfield

Bronte v. Winterson

March Madness Round 1

Austen v. Walcott

Bronte v. Lahiri

Bulgakov v. Murdoch

Cather v. Kesey

Literary March Madness Bracket

Literary March Madness

Introducting Literary March Madness 2010!

All last weekend, Robyn and I watched NCAA basketball on TV; or, at least, I watched, while Robyn occupied herself with far more productive manners, such as reading and drinking tea and doing her Library Science homework. By Sunday, however, I think I succeeded in getting her sucked in just a little bit to the Madness of March. Maybe not the basketball part of it, per se, but she at least got into the "bracketology" aspect; she has been participating herself both in Jezebel's "Cake vs. Pie: March Madness" and Austenaicous.com's "Jane Austen March Madness."

But then came Monday, and both my tournament champion (Kansas) and Robyn's tournament champion (Elinor Dashwood) had been bumped. So we decided that we can make our own damn spreadsheets, thank you very much, and went on to create our own 64-member tournament: Literary March Madness.

The process was simple; we went through our house and found 64 different authors that at least one of us has read and enjoyed, although are a few in the list that are technically library books recently returned. We then divided them into four regions and seeded the regions 1-16. Now we're going to post them here, and invite you and your friends to vote and tell us who our Literary Champion will be.

Some notes and suggestions about you might want to vote. There are a lot of classic authors in the bracket, but not everyone is. We tried to pick writers from a relatively large range; we have authors from different countries, languages, ages, genres, etc. So I don't think it's necessary for you to vote for whom you think the "best" writer is - although that should be something taken into account - or even your personal favorite. But also take into account their personal strengths and weaknesses, how historically important they are, how fond your memories of their stories are, how adroit or indelicate their prose styles are, and whether or not it is raining outside. And remember, upsets are welcome! So, please vote, via blog or Facebook or e-mail, and please leave comments and suggestions for improvement for next year!