Talk:Nicholson Baker

Checkpoint controversy

We read that Checkpoint "is unquestionably the most controversial work Baker has yet written." Presumably the controversy is over its subject matter (story, or non-story) rather than quality. Still, this surprises me. I haven't gone looking for controversy about it, and I'm sure that the more brain-damaged and right-wing of pundits are appalled, but I haven't seen any controversy at all. There was much more controversy, I think, over The Fermata. The latter has probably died down because most controversies do. Oh, and more controversy over Double Fold, and the pieces (and activities) leading up to it. There's a book about Double Fold. Have there been books, or even mere TV programs, about Checkpoint? Is there really no question that Checkpoint is the most controversial work Baker has ever written? (Incidentally, it struck me as extraordinarily mild.) -- Hoary 09:11, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Gotta agree with this. No doubt Checkpoint should have caused more controversy than it did. But Vox and Double Fold caused a hell of a lot of controversy, and we can point to acres of newsprint as evidence. Is there similar evidence for Checkpoint? Gamaliel 15:43, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember much controversy about Vox, and I'm not surprised. There was mild interest when the world heard that Lewinsky had given a copy to Clinton. (Well, so?) The Fermata, yes. -- Hoary 08:32, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

I recall quite a few op-ed columns about the contents of Vox, which is pretty rare for a new work of fiction, and they pre-dated Clinton. Gamaliel 09:03, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

All right then, I concede. We were probably reading different papers at the time. I have to say, though, I can't think what could be controversial about Vox. -- Hoary 09:59, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

Since both 'Fermata' and 'Checkpoint' aroused significant controversy, I've removed the 'most controversial' line.Saagpaneer (talk) 14:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Box of Matches

The article says that "A Box of Matches is in many ways a continuation of Room Temperature," but the reader has not been told what Room Temperature is. Richard K. Carson 04:43, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

• Well, Room Temperature is listed below in his bibliography, though the note on Box of Matches is a bit underwhelming: I thought the book was awesome, having an extremely unique feel for little observations and miniscule moments of humor, but I'd have to read Room Temperature before I would rewrite the paragraph too much. --Tarnas 06:14, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
• I've written up RT just now; I hope I've done a decent job of this. -- Hoary 06:53, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

"A novel"

It's pedantry time! Question: do the title pages of the novels announce "A Novel"? Below, I'll represent certain line breaks as colons, and ignore capitalization, but look at the title pages of all the hardback editions that come to hand.

• The Mezzanine: A Novel (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Room Temperature: A Novel (Grove Weidenfeld)
• Room Temperature (Granta)
• Vox: A Novel (Random House)
• The Everlasting Story of Nory: A Novel (Random House)
• A Book of Matches: A Novel (Chatto & Windus)
• Checkpoint (Knopf)

A bit confusing. Even where they do announce "A Novel", should this be regarded as part of the title?

(ot that I mind either way myself.)-- Hoary (talk) 10:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC) A bit confusing.

Library cataloguing practice (MARC) seems to include "a novel" in the title: The everlasting story of Nory : a novel, etc. Also, consider the works of Graham Greene: The Ministry of Fear: an entertainment, similarly treated. Pinkville (talk) 19:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Just because it's the way libraries catalogue books doesn't mean it's the way an encyclopedia should treat their titles. It would be very unusual to include "a novel" in the title in a work for general readership such as Wikipedia. Saagpaneer (talk) 14:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Human Smoke

Is it just me or does the description of Human Smoke read like a straw man attack? I haven't read the book, but I'm sure that its argument isn't just that WWII was immoral because Britain was the first to use bombers. Brad the Raven (talk) 04:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. One reviewer is quoted as referring indignantly to "praise from respected reviewers in distinguished publications." but we have no samples of that praise. Therefore I'm cutting back on the attacks. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 17:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

His short story "Subsoil"

This exploration of the insidious growth of potato sprouts and the potatofication of the protagonist was included in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 1994. I remember an eerie reading of it on the radio. It might be mentioned. --Wetman (talk) 18:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course it should be mentioned as one of Bakers early footprints(!). And this would be an improvement to the article. For this reason I repeat my last weeks request:

I'm quite interested in the good old "Subsoil" short story, found a description here [1] but I find no way to subscribe to the New Yorker or download the text on any other way. As an agronomist myself, I would like to translate the story into german for an only private, non commercial use in the context of organic and urban farming. Could anybody of the parish please do me the favour of downloading and posting it here? Maybe wageless your/himself could give me a "go" or "no"? Dermotor (talk) 12:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Not a professor at the European Graduate School

I'm not a professor at the European Graduate School. I guest taught there for two days, once in 2006 and once in 2009. I like the place, I like the professors, but I'm no more a teacher there now than any other place where I've visited for a day. Could somebody make this change? Thank you. --Nicholson Baker —Preceding undated comment added 10:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Snipped out with pleasure, Sir; and, however irrelevantly, before you disappear for another few months, let me say how much I enjoyed The Anthologist. Perhaps if you did want to moonlight as a certain kind of phonologist in some European graduate school, there'd be a job waiting for you (but no, no, think of all those committee meetings). -- Hoary (talk) 10:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Kind of you, Hoary, thank you. I'm glad to know you're out here. --Wageless (talk) 01:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Delete sentence?

Hello all. I wonder if the following passage should go from the beginning: "As a novelist, he often focuses on minute inspection of his characters' and narrators' stream of consciousness, and has written about such provocative topics as voyeurism and planned assassination. His fiction generally de-emphasizes narrative in favor of careful description and characterization. Baker's enthusiasts appreciate his ability to candidly explore the human psyche, while critics have charged that his subject matter is trivial.[1]" Last three books were about WWII, the history of poetry, and sex. The "subject matter is trivial" business seems out of date. --Nicholson Baker/Wageless (talk) 13:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I was about to retort that no, the one about sex wasn't among the last three, but it then occurred to me that you might know more about NB's output than I do, so I checked in [blushes] Wikipedia. (Not a reliable source, I know.) Well well, he has a new book out; I greatly look forward to reading it. The second retort was going to be that if critics have charged this, then, however mistakenly, they have charged it -- but then I looked and found the link to just one ho-hum review in something called the Richmond Review, which may for all I know be a praiseworthy organ but which surely doesn't have an influence comparable to that of the NYRB. So anyway I didn't cut it but I did curtail it; I hope it's better now. ¶ Visitors [...] can [...] make love to trees, a blurb tells me. Ah. I'd always wished that A Melon for Ecstasy were actually funny, this promises to be the fix. -- Hoary (talk) 14:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't find his work at all trivial, but then this isn't about personal opinion. I'd imagine that with any high profile author like NB it's easy enough to find an RS that can support pretty much any point of view - funny, trivial, deeply philosophical, irreverant, serious. Span (talk) 16:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

House of Holes

As a contribution to the discussion whether Bakers writing is trivial or not I would like to mention Giovanni Boccaccios Decamerone of Italian Rennaissance, dated about 1350 and its comparability to Bakers HoH. Both seem to be collections of single novellas, more or less linked or knotted to each other. Subject to the novellas is pornography, indeed, but on a fine, prose-poetic, artistical and ambitious level. Either topics are closed resorts in natural areas for wealthy clients on the run of life threatening epidemics generated by interpersonal, sexual contacts. Black Death or pestilence for ancient Tuscan nobility teenagers versus HIV for the todays all American girl / boy respectively adults only. It took us about 600 years to accept, but meanwhile Boccaccios Decamerone is looked upon as a style creating peace of litterature , a red light house, seminal. Baker must wait. Since he is no longer professor in Suisse poetry resort he is doing his job as college lecturer at the open university, seminal seminar of semen, quite well. Boys, did I laugh, when following the link. Dermotor (talk) 11:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I sense that you would like to put forward a thesis about House of Holes. This is not an appropriate website for doing so. It's instead an encyclopedia that summarizes the writings of others in "reliable sources" (which do not include such websites as enotes.com). If you'd like to relate Baker to Boccaccio, then please either (a) cite such an idea from book reviews or academic papers published in journals of note, or (b) write up the idea in wome other website. -- Hoary (talk) 00:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Glad to find my contributions to HoH accepted. What about the term "pornovella"? enotes uses it for the comparison of Decameron / HoH see footmark 13 in article. I would like to introduce this term to the article to describe the "avantgardening" (my claim) status of the author NB. Dermotor (talk) 16:21, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

No, your contributions to a description of House of Holes were not "accepted". It's just that, in contrast to your earlier edits to the article, no automated system or human quickly noticed and altered or reverted them.

I find your description very hard to understand. Within the part of it that I do understand, your citing of enotes.com was utterly inappropriate, because there's no sign that enotes.com is a "reliable source" and plenty of signs that it is not (e.g. that the article you cited was itself derived from Wikipedia, which is not a reliable source).

If (and only if) a neologism such as "pornovella" is used in such publications as the New York Review of Books, it can be used here too. -- Hoary (talk) 00:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

No Sir, no thesis in pipeline, sorry. I missed a description of HoH on the engl. WP site, so I did it myself. I apologize for overshooting. Dermotor (talk) 04:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Not a Philosophy Major

I was an English major at Haverford, not a Philosophy major. (In fact, I only took one philosophy class at Haverford, from the great Richard J. Bernstein.) Maybe somebody could correct this? Wageless (talk) 16:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see the request and fix it for you; I'm glad that you did so yourself, a few days later.

I did find the source of the error though, in that edit by User:271828182. (Mentioning&linking that username will trigger a notification, so maybe he'll have an explanation/apology forthwith! ;) Best wishes, –Quiddity (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

My mistake. I vaguely recall reading something to that effect in a review somewhere in the 1990s, but can't recall where. 271828182 (talk) 22:05, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks guys - it's a very minor thing - I noticed it crept into a printed reference work is all-- Wageless (talk) 03:59, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

And so, the cycle of life continues... (Yup, citogenesis links where it ought to...)

(Re: Major: Oh dear, I hope it wasn't too prominent, or belaboured upon. It doesn't sound amusingly embarrassing, otherwise I'd demand that you share ;) –Quiddity (talk) 05:01, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I am duly ashamed to have contributed to the erosion of reality. As penance, I believe I have located the source of my error, and now pass some of the blame to Martin Amis, who wrote (in Visiting Mrs Nabokov): "There now follows a digression or a 'clog' in which I shall pounce on the fact that Baker, at university and on Wall Street, flirted with philosophy. Philosophers are said to be condemned to one of two strange relationships with the world of objects: either indifference or near-crippling obsession." My bad for misremembering this. N.B.: Thanks for all the enjoyable reading, especially the made-up swear words. 271828182 (talk) 06:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Hermann Hesse Price, Germany

N.Baker will receive the International Hermann Hesse price for literature and translation together with his german translator Eike Schönfeld on July,2 (Hesses birthday) in Calw, Southwest region of Germany, close to Stuttgart. source: http://www.hermann-hesse.de/archiv/2014/03/11/internationaler-hermann-hesse-preis-2014-nicholson-baker — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dermotor (talk • contribs) 16:40, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Photograph

The more recent photo, which was substituted by wageless himself on January, 17 was deleted on April, 10. Any chance to find a photo, which fulfills all rules of wikipedia, the free eeetc.? -Dermotor (talk) 21:02, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Music

Hi, this is Dermotor again, from overseas/abroad. While reading "Traveling sprinkler" and listening to some of Pauls samples on youtube, I noticed that Nick Baker is on air with 4-5 critical songs, first was "Jeju island", than followed by "Terrormaker", 2012; "When you intervene",2014; "Nine Women Gathering Firewood" and dedicated to Branning: "Whistleblower song", 2014. Should that be subject to his WP site? Dermotor (talk) 14:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Bibliography

I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. Feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 22:48, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

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Born in NYC

ThatMontrealIP, and anyone else who's interested: Baker was born in NYC. In short: Wageless says so, and that's good enough for me.

Please see the recent edits, and particularly their summaries. Promoting one user's say-so above a published source may seem a terrible thing to do, violating policies and all that; however, Wageless is Baker. (And he's not just any old Wikipedia biographee who's occasionally stepped in to correct something within his own bio: he's an enthusiastic, skilled and appreciative editor of other articles too.) If he agrees with his mother that he was born in NYC, let's agree that he was born in NYC. -- Hoary (talk) 13:40, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

It still needs an independent source, which I did not have time to look for. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 14:52, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

source added. That guardian article is from 2008. Wageless has made ten edits since 2008.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 14:56, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for sourcing it, ThatMontrealIP. -- Hoary (talk) 22:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes the sources say different things (O'Mahony: Rochester, New York; McGrath 2011: New York City) so then it's good Wageless can advise on which source is correct. Mujinga (talk) 10:50, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

ISBNs for editions/works

I notice Sunwin1960's comment above (under "Bibliography") about info within lists of works, three years after the comment was posted. (Sorry, Sunwin1960!)

Back in the ancient history of this article, I added ISBNs for editions other than the sole edition that already happened to have an ISBN. Because, as we know, "ISBNs only identify a particular edition of a book, and a reader with only an ISBN will not see the full range of versions of the book". However, many WP editors subscribe to the myth that the ISBN that appears on the physical object that they happen to have in front of them identifies the work, and quite a number of editors like to splatter lists of works with Template:ISBN missing -- ignoring the template's documentation, which says that it "is an inline cleanup template for flagging a reference that is missing the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) of the source document" (my emphasis).

I suppose that back when I added the second and further ISBNs, I lazily assumed that (translations aside) for most of these works there'd be just four editions: US hard, US paper, GB hard, GB paper; but of course that's myopic. (And as for laziness, I didn't even complete the dubious job I'd started.)

I suggest adding a note at the top of each (sub)list saying that normally only first editions are mentioned; removing both any mention of later editions (including later paperback versions of the first, hardback editions) unless we have reason to believe that their content is revised, augmented or reduced;* and removing all ISBNs.

* Do any of the later editions have revised, augmented or reduced content? (I don't know of any example.)

Since I spend a fair amount of time adding ISBNs to other lists of books (example, example), suggesting that they should be removed here may seem capricious. But I think the usefulness/deceptiveness of providing ISBNs within lists of works depends a lot on the kind(s) of work that are listed, on the editions that have already appeared, and on the likelihood of further editions. -- Hoary (talk) 23:10, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment on [what I perhaps mistakenly think are] details: Three years ago, Sunwin1960 wrote: "I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it." I kind-of understand the value of cite templates when they're used for citations (though I rarely bother with them even then). I don't know what advantage they have when used, as here, for lists of works; as an editor, I tend to find them rather annoying, and think (or delude myself) that I can do well without them. I have no training in librarianship or experience as a librarian and therefore am unfamiliar with AACR2 and RDA. Rather, I have to depend for these matters on my Common Sense [hollow laugh]. -- Hoary (talk) 23:45, 9 January 2020 (UTC)\

Hi Hoary, I've been doing a bit of work on the article and yes I saw that Sunwin comment. Since it was rather old and they had only done (if i remember correctly) three books, I decided to take out the cite template and standardise the fiction subsection to its most used format. I do note selected essays is still using cite. I'm personally unbothered which format to use but I do think it's messy to use different formats within a subsection. As regards ISBNs, I am again not that fussed, I used them because they were there already. On balance I think I like them, I might use the ISBN rather than the title if I was to search for the book on in internet and in a sense they are serving as a reference for the work. Mujinga (talk) 10:56, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Mujinga, U & I is shown as having five ISBNs, all of editions from the last century. I'd be surprised if there weren't also new editions, with new ISBNs, from this century. Do you really want seven or more ISBNs for each work, plus a feeling of built-in obsolescence as at any time there might emerge yet newer editions, with new ISBNs? Incidentally, over at the article U and I: A True Story an editor added a photo of an edition whose front cover mentions Vox and The Fermata (and therefore of course postdates these) to an "infobox" that specifies a single ISBN: that of an edition that predates either. -- Hoary (talk) 11:44, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

oh is that what you were talking about? five ISBNs does seem excessive, one for a first edition seems fine to me. For what its worth, ISBNs are included in Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/ArticleTemplate Mujinga (talk) 12:08, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

A single ISBN. But you say "I might use the ISBN rather than the title if I was to search for the book on in internet". Your search would, of course, miss all copies of any edition other than the first.... Hoary (talk) 12:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)