[ Wed Mar 21 12 ]
Ellen Ullman read from her new book By Blood and spoke with Jaron Lanier in Berkeley’s Mrs. Dalloway’s. This event was co-sponsored by The Bay Citizen and ZYZZYVA, whose managing editor, Oscar Villalon, served as moderator.
Below is a loose topic guide to each video:
- Introduction: Oscar Villalon introduces Ellen Ullman and Jaron Lanier
- Ullman “sets the scene” for the novel by reading select passages
- Conversation: Doug Engelbart and humanism in the computer tech world | Close to the Machine and “the triumphalism of nerd culture” | The deeper mission of literature in the future, or: How people connect with reality | The purpose of the single purpose instrument | Finding a voice and finishing a novel
- Conversation: Before you and the internet: the narcissism of our times | Synopsis and background: By Blood and the feeling of dread in early 70s San Francisco | The auditory elements in By Blood
- Conversation: Authors, their publishers, and social media | “The frenetic optimization of the world” | The devaluation of the expert
- Q&A: The Maoification of the internet | The evolving roles of the visual + the auditory in our culture | Research and reality: the importance of accuracy
- Q&A: The Social Network, Facebook + integrity (in coding and in practice)
[Resources]
- Review in 300 characters: By Blood is a page-turning psychological mystery without any crime that probes such heavy topics as obsession, insanity, heritage, and self-worth through an engaging story uncanny in its literary form. The writing is as sharp as the intellect it reveals, with a tension that boders on the manic.
- Watch the trailer for By Blood
- Read the reviews: LA Times | The Rumpus | Slate | NYT | The Bay Citizen | SF Chronicle | NPR | Kirkus | Publisher’s Weekly
- Listen to Ullman read passages from the beginning of By Blood