Over at PJ Media, Bruce Bawer discusses the “big three” postwar American novelists, Vidal, Capote, and Mailer, and the reasons why somehow none of them ever managed to write the Great American Novel:

This fondness for murderers suggests that, for all their differences and their mutual hostility, Mailer, Capote, and Vidal had something in common that separated them from most of the rest of us. Even as all of them adored the limelight, they were drawn to the dark side. If they weren’t, in the final analysis, great, or even particularly good, American novelists, perhaps it was, in large part, not because of a lack of raw talent but because they all felt, to some degree and for various reasons, alienated from ordinary Americans to a degree that made it impossible for any of them to write with sufficient empathy and understanding about their countrymen – except, perhaps, those who had killed in cold blood. To be capable of a perverse sympathy for psychopaths but incapable of contemplating ordinary American life without feeling contempt and condescension (and this last applies less to Capote than to the other two) is not the formula for producing enduring literature.

Have a great weekend!

David Barton of WallBuilders is a big name among public speakers and authors who teach on our nation’s founding fathers and the soul of America. His latest book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, is being harshly criticized by historians who usually agree with his conclusions. World Magazine reports:

Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President (Salem Grove Press), argues that Barton “is guilty of taking statements and actions out of context and simplifying historical circumstances.” For example, they charge that Barton, in explaining why Jefferson did not free his slaves, “seriously misrepresents or misunderstands (or both) the legal environment related to slavery.”

In response, Barton says he cites his sources extensively so that critics can take up their arguments in their original context.

Somebody shared this on Facebook, and I thought it was just the thing for a book blog. The only known footage of author Mark Twain, taken by Thomas Edison in 1909.

Somebody noted in the comments that both Twain and his daughter Jean would be dead within a year.

What do we learn from this fragment? Well, Mark Twain walked a little funny. Also, Thomas Edison was a better inventor than cinematographer. Didn’t it occur to him that the middle daughter’s face, in the second scene, is mostly hidden behind that samovar, or whatever the thing is? Then she puts on a big hat, and we can’t even see her hair. Frame the shot, Tom!