Skip to main content

The Literary Review - Great International Literature From Fairleigh Dickinson and Editor Walter Cummins

Image
By

The Golden Years of The Literary Review

In the mid nineties, The Literary Review, edited by Walter Cummins and published online by Michael Neff of Del Sol Press, held the distinction of being the second traditional literary journal to ever be published on the Internet--the first being Mississippi Review edited by Frederick Bartheleme. Like Barthelme, TLR editor Cummins was a visionary, and unlike most of his contemporaries at the time, quickly saw the value in making the superb and varied international literature of TLR available to the world via the Internet.

As you will see below, we are linking here to as many of these TLR golden age issues as we can discover, now all web-archived (thank God!). And why the web archive, you ask? Well, the originals, over a dozen issues, suddenly vanished overnight from the mainstream web once Walter Cummins retired from TLR. It was as if they never existed. The former editor, contributors, and web publisher were never notified. Though  a shock to all at the time, this disconcerting event is old news, and the time to rectify is at hand. We hope you enjoy these fantastic collections of a bygone era.

Special thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine! And thanks to the tech guys for their skill and foresight. If not for them, this small miracle of rescue would not have been possible.

________________________________________________  

The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing has been published quarterly by Fairleigh Dickinson University since 1957. Its many special issues have introduced new fiction, poetry, and essays from many nations, regions, or languages to English readers. Issues focus on such topics as contemporary Portugese literature, Iranian exiles, the Jewish diaspora, North African authors, and Russian women writers. Works from issues devoted to writing in English have won awards and been reprinted in many collections. A good sampling of these issues, recently recovered, are featured below.

 The Literary Review, Winter 96

Sample:
Opening Night in the Capital
IHARA SAIKAKU

      In the cities under the shogun's rule, townsmen flourish. Like the words to the song, "Prosperity reigns." The merchants of the capital are an exuberant lot. They can afford it, for reckoning to them is second nature, and frugality has become a way of life. (*1)
      Last fall, when the Konparu school of no actors performed in the capital, not a seat remained in the house--though a box for the four-day performance cost ten silver pieces, and all tickets were cash-in-advance. To add to the furor, the old favorite Lady Komachi at Sekidera was on the bill, whetting everyone's appetite. Problems arose with the drum, alas, and the program was changed at the last moment. Even so, crowds thronged the theater. From the night before the opening, people piled upon people like a mountain of humanity...

________________________________________________  

 The Literary Review, Spring/Summer 96

Sample:
Stone Daughter
DEBORAH LEE WESSELMANN 

  I moved to Japan because my husband's father and elder brother Jiro had died in an early morning fire that destroyed the family house. A nephew, two years old, whom I had never met, had also perished, virtually wiping out the male line of the Tanaka family. The day after we had received the news, my husband woke me before the sun had risen. "Ellen," he said, "I must return to Kasama." I knew he meant for good, though he was afraid to say it. For six generations, his family had been making pottery in their sloping kiln built up the side of a hill; without him, the dynasty would end. His mother feared losing the business to a distant relative, one who did not understand that her husband lived on in his clay.
        "We must return," I told him.
        Relief unfurled his dark eyebrows, and I kissed them. I had come to think of a life as a series of little string pieces knotted together, one at a time, to form a misshapen doll. This journey, I knew, could be another bit of string attached to myself, or it could be the first piece of a new doll, one that perhaps would not end up as deformed...

________________________________________________  

The Literary Review, Summer/Fall 96

Sample:
The Death Trap by the Bikin River
ULLA LENA LUNDBERG 
      The hunter blows the dirt off the sugar lumps in the open box and mixes Grusian tea into the bog water boiling on the open fire. He knocks the dead insects off the bottom of the enameled cups and pours. "Drink," he says.
      We could use a fortifying drink, because one of us came within a hair's breadth of ending his days in the death trap right behind us...

________________________________________________  

The Literary Review, Winter 97

Sample:
The Rendez-vous
AZADEH NADERI 
WHEN THE WOMAN WOKE UP, she remembered it was July 14, 1986, and she had to keep a historic appointment. Her husband was up, and the sound of the water in the bathtub left no doubt of his location. Instead of the morning roosters and singing birds, Mahmoud was the herald of the new day. Familiar sounds followed one upon another: The slippers scraping against the floor; the opening of the bathroom door, razor and brush, toothpaste and cup, clattering out of the medicine chest. If she had had a few drinks the night before, or had finally overcome insomnia, or was sound asleep for some other reason, he still had other devices. He would clunk the kettle down on the stove, or call loudly to the kids. He would never shake her awake; politeness was still the order of the day. But one of his arrows would eventually hit the target...

________________________________________________  

The Literary Review, Spring 97

Sample:
Bedloe's Island, 3 A.M.
BARBARA F. LEFCOWITZ 
    So many names without faces,
    shoes without feet,
    darkened market stalls.
    I walk past the wrecked tower, the bands
    of electronic headlines
    pulsing out news of Pearl Harbor, Bataan;
    walk past the museum of failed marriages
    without looking inside; past the black-eyed
    school of no lessons;
    the shrine for lost raptures & products of conception...
________________________________________________  

 The Literary Review, Winter 97

Sample:
Sketching
HOUSHANG GOLSHIR 

WHEN WE ARRIVED, there in the approaching bend, a woman riding a bicycle was passing by. She passes still, her torso following a curved line, garbed in a shirt, short-sleeved and white. She pedals on, her hair wafting seaward on her shoulders, looking toward the street we later saw, when the woman was no longer there; the street that parallels the harbor, and then turns left into a place that exists still, but which we never got a chance to see. She was gone. It was not our fault that we did not see her again, though when I saw that she was not there, I thought perhaps Shirin had intentionally prevented it. Nevertheless, I see her still, with the corner of her shirt floating in the air. Her pants were of black cotton. I can also see the sandal on one of her feet, the one with the back lace untied. She pedals and holds her face straight into the wind and she goes. For a moment, we parked near the sidewalk, so that Shirin could step out and light us both a cigarette, and I could only get a glimpse of her slightly bent torso and her uptilted head, facing into the wind, with her brunette hair, all with the backdrop of a calm blue sea.
________________________________________________  

 The Literary Review, Spring 98

Sample:

First Book of the Moon
    RENEE ASHLEY
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night . . . .
--Genesis 1:16
New Moon

(Moon as Utterance)I can't remember the first time we said moon. We were
         lightheaded by then,
dizzy: moon-drunk. And then it was gone--the oddest thing,
          the new moon,
no moon at all, that slipping back and stunned again, and absence
          vast as a sun,
vaster, and everyone naked as fish in the black room of our
          dream. We spoke
in whispers. We crawled on our bellies through that hollow vowel
          as if
we believed we could breathe there, as though our whole lives
          were suspended, 
__________

Useful Links re TLR and Walter Cummins

Labels:

Comments

  1. Algonkian Writer Programs4:01 PM

    I have been meaning to create this blog post for a long time, ever since I discovered that the archives online had vanished without a trace or an explanation. I couldn't be happier that these prior and priceless issues of The Literary Review are now back and available to everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown10:37 PM

    Bravo, Mike! Beautifully done! And thank you for including me! A goldmine of TLR for all.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Worthy WE Wisdom

The Six Act Two-Goal Novel

By
What makes for good drama is a constant. To begin, we combine Siegal's "nine act structure - two goal" screenplay (very much like the Syd Field three act except that the "reversal" from Field's structure joins "Act 5" in Siegal's version) with the Field classic three act. The Two-Goal Structure, Siegal maintains, creates more dynamic plot tension due to the insertion of PLOT REVERSAL later in the story. We concur.  NOTE:  "Plot Point" is defined here as a major occurrence that emphatically changes the course of the story. In the genre novel as a whole, we see three to five major plot points depending on various factors: a first PP that begins the rising action, second PP defined by the first major reversal, a third PP defined by a possible second major reversal, a climax PP, and a theoretical PP residing in the denouement, i.e., we think the story is going to resolve a certain way after climax, but a surprise happens that resolves...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Top Ten Worst Pieces of Writing Advice" (and it gets worse)

By
OUTSIDE OF NARCISSISM, IMPATIENCE AND BAD ADVICE ARE A WRITER'S WORST ENEMIES . If you ever attend writer events, you will never cease to hear utterances of bad writing advice, the popular kind that circulate like  ruinous viral memes through the nervous systems of America's aborning novel writers. And each time you are exposed, you either chuckle or swear, depending on your mood and the circumstance. You might make a daring attempt to kill the meme in its tracks before it can infect someone else, or you might just stare at the writer with a dumbfounded look and ask, "Where the hell did you hear that?" Yes, the primal question: WHERE THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT? Inevitably, many will point to their writer's group . Ahhhh, of course , you think. Why just recently at an Algonkian event , one of my faculty (a former senior editor at Random House) and I were faced with an individual who adamantly asserted to us both that using only one point of view to write a n...
28 comments
Read more

What Makes a Good Memoir?

By
By Paula Margulies As a publicist, I'm sent books of all genres by authors interested in my services, but lately I seem to be on the receiving end of a lot of memoirs. I've also spoken to a higher-than-usual number of memoir writers, who either telephone or approach me with questions at writer's conferences. The bulk of these conversations have to do with why their memoirs aren’t selling and what the authors can do to make them better. My first suggestion for all memoir writers is to take a look at their market and identify the different types of people who would want to read their book. This is tricky, for while many memoir writers have done a good job of detailing certain aspects of their personal history, a number of them have not thought about who might be interested in reading what they've written. A lot of memoirs I've seen recently are nothing more than personal recountings of an individual’s experiences – some of which are, indeed, memorable. But I...
2 comments
Read more

Labors, Sins, and Six Acts - Official Novel Writing Guide - All Genres

By
An ideal first stop... You will discover below a series of scholarly, researchable, frank and indispensable guides to conceiving and writing the commercial genre novel, as well as the plot-driven literary novel. But the cutting edge of the developmental peels and prods as presented makes an initial big assumption, namely, that you are honestly desirous of true publication either by a classic publisher or traditional literary press , and therefore, willing to birth the most dynamic and can't-put-it-down novel you possibly can. Further, you are also naturally desirous of great sets, mind-altering theme, unforgettable characters, and cinematic scenes, among other things. Does that go without saying?   Perhaps, but you must know, it won't be easy. Labors and Sins First of all, the method-based assertions and information we've gathered and elevated before your eyes below will shiver many of you like a 6.5 on the literary Richter scale because it will contr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Loglines and Hooks With Core Wounds

By
HOOK OR LOG WITH CORE WOUND AND CONFLICT Your hook line (also known as logline) is your first chance to get a New York or Hollywood professional interested in your novel. It can be utilized in your query to hook the agent into requesting the project. It is especially useful for those pitch sessions at conferences, lunches, in the elevator, or anywhere else. When a prospective agent or editor asks you what your book is about, your high-concept hook line is your answer. Writing one also encourages a realization of those primary elements that will make your novel into a work of powerful fiction.  The great novel, more often than not, comprises two stories: the exterior story or plot line, and an interior story focused primarily on the protagonist, one that defines and catalyzes her or his evolutionary arc throughout the novel. For example, a protagonist with a flaw or core wound that prevents her from achieving a worthwhile goal is forced to respond to a lifechanging event instig...
2 comments
Read more

"High Concept"? Sufficiently Unique? - Write a Tale That Might Actually Sell

By
Aspire to be a great genre author? So what's your high concept?...  If you fail to grasp the vital importance of this second question, you will fail to conceive much less write a publishable genre novel - thriller, mystery, fantasy, horror, crime, SF, you name it. Just not going to happen. Don't let any writer group or self-appointed writer guru online or writer conference panel tell you otherwise. You're competing with tens of thousands of other aspiring authors in your genre. Consider. WHAT IS GOING TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL STAND OUT from the morass of throat-gulping hopefuls who don't know any better? Believe it or not, 99.5% of the writers in workshops all across the country *do not* arrive with a high-concept story. If anything, their aborning novel child is destined for still birth. They strut forward proudly waving their middle or low concept tale while noting how their hired editor from Stanford, or Iowa, or the Johns Hopkins MA program just "loves it!...
1 comment
Read more