Monkey Business, Malamud at 100 & Good: Two literary events & a quality restaurant experience

Joyce Carol Oates

New York, you all are very well aware, is a town just inundated with writers, publishers, editors, literary festivals, readings, literary discussions & symposia with critics, reviewers & writers ... not to mention the omnipresence of readings by writers, book-oriented events, and interviews with novelists & poets featured at museums, universities, various libraries, bookstores, coffee houses & bars. Most of these "writerly" events are interesting, enlightening & fun ... and many are free!

Howard Jacobson

I recall two such events, among many others, that, for many reasons, proved memorable: the first, at John Jay College, CUNY featuring Richard Ford reading from a new novel & interviewing Joyce Carol Oates and Oates, in turn, reading from her latest fiction & interviewing Ford. Along with most of the large audience, I was mesmerized by the depth, richness & honesty of the conversation between these two fiction writers, two literary luminaries ... in all, a special type of literary event with a poignancy that we rarely witness; the second (fairly recent) event involved the British (Jewish) comic novelist, Howard Jacobson, in an interview-discussion with NYPL's Paul Holdengräber, the director of the public program series Live from the New York Public Library. This discussion was also probing, entertaining & (seemingly) quite revealing on the part (& subject) of Mr. Jacobson, his role in British literature and his idiosyncratic preoccupations, his personal tastes (including his professed skill & interest in ping-pong), and his novelistic inclinations.

Paul Holdengräber

While these events go on all year long, virtually non-stop, during every season, my favorite time of the year for these sorts of literary to-do's is Spring. Somehow, a great many seem to be publicized, brought unceasingly to our attention, and, thus, made readily available & accessible to those interested in literature in all its forms & guises. Spring, too, is the season for PEN America's conference of International Literature - the Festival of World Voices ... this year celebrating its 10th anniversary (from April 28th thru May 4th). More than 150 writers from some 30 countries gathered in venues all over New York City (most in Manhattan) to read from their utterly diverse bodies of work, speak out for "their art & beliefs," and interact with each other, the press. and with conference attendees.

To give you the feel of the PEN festival I offer a description of one program, a strikingly successful & alluring one, indeed. 

New Writing from Japan

Hosted by the Asia Society (70th St. & Park Avenue), the program - "Monkey Business, sponsored both by PEN & The Japan Foundation - was the brainchild of the editors of the annual journal Monkey Business which publishes new Japanese writing and sometimes juxtaposes the Japanese writers & texts with their counterparts in the United States and the UK. And that was how the program was structured for this occasion (Saturday, May 3rd) ... where two young Japanese writers were paired with new(-ish), non-mainstream (?) American writers with some common narrative characteristics or stylistic tendencies. Each member of a "duo" of writers (a Japanese paired with an American) read from one of his (this time only male, by accident & not design) characteristic or new work(s) and then questions were posed to the writer by his opposite number. And vice versa ...

Writer - Hideo Furukawa

Following the interactions of the "teams" of Japanese/American writers, the two editors of Monkey Business (one Japanese; one American) commented on what had transpired and also asked a few probing questions attempting to establish links between the post-modern texts from each culture. A number of questions were also elicited from members of the audience focusing on such variable elements as literary translation, content, reflections of culture(s), narrative voice, form & genre. The program, a bit unusual but ultimately solid in structure, proved absorbing and candid, an interesting "cross-cultural experiment" in literary dialogue. The writers asked valuable & relevant questions of each other marking both differences & similarities in such concerns as style, tone, thematic content, character delineation, length of a work, type of narration. 

Prize-winning writer - Toh EnJoe

As was advertised in the PEN conference brochure, the multiple conversations between Japanese & American writers & editors resulted in an exceptionally lively, honest, and  personally & artistically revealing interaction. In all, the event - moderated by the Monkey Business co-founders & current editors, Motoyuki Shibata & Ted Goosen - proved to be the "provocative cross-cultural encounter exploring the writer's voice in Japanese and English" that the Asia Society publicity promised it would be. Kudos to the organizers of the event; to the enthusiastic, hardworking & efficient (yes, female!) translator; and, finally, to the writers themselves - including "genre-bending" novelist Laird Hunt (Kind One, 2012), Matthew Sharpe (You Were Wrong, 2010), Akutagawa Award-winning novelist Toh EnJoe (Harlequin's Butterfly) & Fukushima-born writer Hideo Furukawa (Belka, Why Don't You Bark?).

Haruki Murakami

Note:  Admission to this event included a complimentary copy of the latest issue (#4) of Monkey Business. Earlier issues were on sale (discounted for attendees) in the Asia Society's shop, AsiaStore. One back issue (#1) includes Furukawa's lengthy, complete & comprehensive interview (entitled "Pursuing 'Growth'") with the acclaimed fiction writer, Haruki Murakami! 

Bernard Malamud

Another marvelous, memorable, (even) magical literary event we recently (May 1st) attended at The Center for Fiction (17 West 47th, just off 5th Ave.) celebrated the life & 100th anniversary of the birth of the inimitable fiction writer, Bernard Malamud.

The program - entitled, simply, "A Tribute to Bernard Malamud" - was organized by the young novelist, Boris Fishman, who assembled a panel of distinguished writers, reviewers, critics, editors & "old friends" to reminisce & reflect on various aspects of Malamud's work and dedication to his craft & his students. Fishman's panel offered up personal anecdotes & commentary on a wide swath of Malamud's output (over 50+ prolific years of writing & teaching) ... focusing on such major works as The Fixer, The Natural, and the story, "Rembrandt's Hat." 

In organizing & moderating this Malamud tribute, Fishman, according to Center for Fiction publicity, decided to repay "a debt to an author who taught him perhaps more than any other" as he worked on his own debut novel (entitled A Replacement Life, out in June). The diverse group appearing on the panel featured:  Alan Cheuse (writer & NPR books reviewer); Philip Davis (Malamud's biographer & editor of the 3-volume Library of America - Complete Malamud); Clark Blaise ("owner of 'Bern's' Smith-Corona electric," author of 25 books, and long-time Malamud friend & confidante); Liesl Schillinger (New York-based critic & translator, enamored of The Fixer and the "male-female dynamics" found therein); Téa Obreht (a fiction writer moved, or provoked, by "Rembrandt's Hat"); Bharati Mukherjee (author of eight novels and numerous essays on immigration & American culture, and Malamud friend, "disciple," devotee); and Malamud's grandson, Paul Malamud, who revealed via anecdote, a variety of thoughts & feelings about his grandfather, the Malamud family, and Malamud's essentially humble origin & equally humble but dignified nature. 
 
Philip Davis reflected on all aspects of Malamud, the writer, and the individual in the context of the works. Clark Blaise reminisced about speaking with Malamud on their walks in Bennington "which always started with a visit to Robert Frost's grave."  But the anecdote related by Alan Cheuse - concerning how Malamud once paid a traffic ticket  for Cheuse when he was caught rolling through a stop sign one night on his way to a party at Malamud's home - revealed Malamud's notion of friendship and genuine goodness.

This recent May event, hosted by The Center for Fiction and deftly moderated by Mr. Fishman - celebrating the life & work of an American "master" of the form of fiction - will surely be identified by attendees and etched in their memories as one truly magical evening!  Indeed, my wife and I will certainly recall the evening that prompted us to return to Malamud's multifarious Collected Stories ... stories which reflect, according to Cynthia Ozick, "suffering, loneliness, lust, confinement, defeat ... [which] tremble with subterranean fragility ... in [a] voice ... unlike any other." (The New York Times)

√ Not exactly a footnote:  After having attended the Monkey Business program at Asia Society (on Park Ave., the upper East Side), we and two other couples were scheduled to meet for an early dinner at good restaurant (89 Greenwich Avenue; situated near Bank St., a short walk down from 8th Avenue; tel. 212/691-8080). Good is described as an "eclectic eatery" serving what they identify as "modern American" cuisine. And so we chose to sample their menu, well, as "eclectically" as we were able, given 6 diners ... and why not?  We ordered a Heidler Gruner Veltliner, a medium dry yet fruity white wine (@ $39; & a 2nd bottle a bit later with our mains). Surely the rich soils & steep slopes of Austria's Kamptal region have contributed to what one wine aficionado designated an "interesting, texturally compelling wine." We all thought so, too, hence the purchase of that 2nd bottle!

good restaurant - interior shot

Good offers a few options for dinner: one can order from the "early supper special," 3-course (appetizer, main, dessert) prix-fixe menu @ $25, nightly, between 6:00 & 7:00. And four members of our party did just that ... each selecting a different trio of appetizer, main & dessert, with little or no overlap.

Escarole & farro salad w/pecorino & vinaigrette

The appetizers list, a first course on the "early special" menu, contained enough variety, solidity & depth to satisfy us all - standouts included the scallion pancake with herb falafel, cucumber yogurt salad, cilantro & pea shoots; a fine rendition of a chicken liver pancetta crostini, drizzled with capers, parsley & lemon; and, finally, the escarole & farro salad, replete with smoked almonds, red onion, pecorino & garlic-anchovy vinaigrette. This last appetizer selection being a very fresh and extremely well integrated salad, a very congruent admixture of ingredients, indeed!

Overnight roasted Hampshire pork

We sampled a variety of mains - the "autumn mushroom" cavatelli, the roasted Bell Evans chicken, the "market fresh" fish tacos & the overnight roasted Hampshire pork. All mains were reported as tasty & flavorful and each of us had overflowing plates with all sorts of supplemental "goodies" (pardon my usage of the word in this context). The market fish tacos, for example, came with red onion cabbage slaw, basil creamed corn (scrumptious, indeed!) with the fish & a lime cilantro sauce packed in good-sized grilled tortillas; the roasted pork was accompanied by small mounds of peach preserves, summer beans & walnut spaetzle in natural jus. Glorious mushroom slices saturated the cavatelli and suffused the roasted chicken plate, the latter a tried & true item which was further garnished with sugar snap peas, fregula (a pasta from Sardinia) & currants.

Duck confit

Our two companions who chose to opt out of the prix-fixe arrangement, selected the seared garlic calamari (with grilled organic rye, cabbage & parsley) as their shared appetizer, and then each selected a main (but refrained from dessert). One diner from this "hold-out" duo ordered the brook trout, a plate comprising spinach, crisp baby artichokes & preserved Meyer lemon salsa (@ $24); the final member of our six-member dining group sampled the duck confit ($21), which seems to have proven a very ample & pleasant culinary indulgence, what with the tender slices & silky texture of the meat.

Bread pudding w/vanilla ice cream & caramel syrup

Desserts - the final course on the special prix-fixe diner - were, on the whole, sweet, varied, rich, creamy & abundant: my favorite consisted in the warm banana chocolate chip bread pudding, with vanilla ice cream & caramel syrup; a strong runner up must have been the Key lime pie panna cotta, pistachio cake, further complemented with lime sorbet & berries. The coffee served - enjoyed by the 1/2 of our party who ordered it - was dark, rich & robust ... a perfect accompaniment for the rich desserts we had chosen for our finale! Of the three remaining diners, one ordered a double (dark!) espresso, another a latte, and the third selected an herbal tea.

The early evening dinner for six at good lasted about 90 minutes (or so) and went as smoothly as could be done with one couple heading for an off-Broadway show (not far way) and another heading down to the Film Forum to see Ida, a complex & somewhat emotionally sterile (at best neutral) new Polish film that has received a good amount of attention.

good restaurant

A low-key eatery that is vibrant, friendly, pleasant ... good presents a relatively modern, enjoyably "eclectic," creative American cuisine.  In short, good made a great impression on us all!  And, consequently, we'll all arrange to dine here, once again, in the not-too-distant future!