N+1 magazine #8 (Fall 2009)

N+1 magazine
#8 Fall 2009

This issue was published just in the midst of the crisis, and because of that some of the articles were dedicated to it. Now, two years later, these crises materials are outdated, but they reflected two things. Firstly, it is clear that in the midst of the crisis in the U.S. there was serious panic, the world for every American almost tumbled into the abyss. Secondly, the magazine showed his citizenship: its pages splashed with despair, anger and hope in their country.

The best articles of this issue are those to whom the financial crisis did not have relations. Gays are our utopian heroes. So begins the article «On Repressive Sentimentalism», balanced analysis of gay movement and its possible future. What can cause a general lack of any bans on gay marriage? Why do more and more people opt for same-sex unions? How far does sex without consequences determine human behavior in today's world? These and other issues Mark Greif raised in his article.

«So Little To Remember» is an essay by Philip Connors in the form of a diary, which at first I take for a piece of fiction. The author alternates between diary entries that he experiences after the suicide of her brother, with quotations from the books.
Digression into the film industry of Mozambique has been taken by Emily Witt in the «Cinema E Luxo». Mark Roth sees another death of the novel at the peak of so-called neuronovel. In his article «The Rise of the Neurovel» Roth examines the books in which the work of mind is replaced by the work of the brain, then there are novels where the protagonist suffers from any disease of the brain. Among these novels - McEwan with "Saturday" and "Enduring Love", Haddon with "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", Lethem with "Motherless Brooklyn" etc. Roth found an interesting new angle on those books, but his final conclusions are not convincing. End of the novel was predicted for hundreds of times, but the end never came, by the same the total amount of neuronovels is very small to talk about some dominance.

We should also mention fiction component of the magazine. Juan Villoro in «Among Friends» mixes the criminal plot with kidnapping with descriptions of the reportage of Mexico. What immediately gives Villoro a South American, so it's genuine sadness and his sociality. On the cover of a magazine Villoro is named the best untranslated Mexican novelist, after that short story, we can already say that it is no exaggeration.

N +1 is the best source of intelligent reading which I know about.