The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 28

PAGE C2 THE CITIZEN'S WEEKLY MARCH 21, 1999 BETWEEN THE LINES By James Macgowan READING JFK, WITH REGRET A compendium of news, notes and ideas from the world of books DIARY A LOOK AT EVENTS THEN AND NOW 1940, John F. Kennedy's dad, Joseph P. (U.S. ambassador to Britain at the time), wrote to London School of Economics professor Harold Laski, praising JFK's senior thesis Why England Slept. MARCH 21 1 985 Larry Flynt offers to sell Hustler magazine for $18 million.

He said he had grown "tired of the rat race." GLOUCESTER SPOKEN WORD: Seymour Mayne, Evelyn Voigt, John Dooher and Asoka Weerasinghe are featured, 2:30 p.m. Cafe Magrit, 2425 St. Joseph Blvd. 747-2272. ELGIN STREET READING SERIES: Author Kim Moritsugu to read from Old Flames, 4 p.m.

Lieutenant's Pump, 361 Elgin St. STORIES FROM THE AGES: Kalevala continues Stealing the Sampo with Tom Lips and Louhi's Revenge with Daniel Kletke, 7 p.m. Rasputin's, 696 Branson Ave. Suggested donation $5. 256-0353230-5102.

SfT JSg" 1 f-Al I l.l.,., to-' I I Ik sy Vn i0 EDGAR ALLAN POE RETURNS A CHRISTMAS GIFT THE NEW YORKER COLLECTION 1990, ED WARD FRANCISCO FROM CARTOONBANK.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MARCH 23 TREE READING SERIES: Ottawa poet John Barton, 8 p.m Club SAW, 67 Nicholas St. Free. MARCH 25 1811 Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from Oxford for refuting he wrote The Necessity of Atheism. BOOK LAUNCH: Terry Ann Carter presents Waiting for Julia, a lyrical chronicle of the Chernoby disaster, 8 p.m.

National Library of Canada, Rm. 156, 395 Wellington St. 992-9988. LITERATI: Governor General award-winner Greg Hollingshead discusses The Healer with host Austin Clarke, 7:30 p.m. Bravo, Channel 40.

A good book but OTTEN REVIEWS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN about some of the world's best books 1- some revered today as classics and their authors. These dismissals, ap-JL X-pearing in both noteworthy and not-so-noteworthy publications, can affect sales and, more importantly, literary reputations. It would seem, however, that reviews themselves are often dismissed. While many celebrated victims of reviewers' barbs endure, the reviewers, more often than not, are long forgotten. The perpetrators can now live on, thanks to Rotten Reviews, edited by Bill Henderson (Penguin Books), a compendium of some of the nastiest critiques ever penned.

BOOKS QUIZ NUMBERED WORKS ByPaulPaquet 1. If you know your Ray Bradbury, you would know the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which paper will burn. What is it? 2. According to John Reed, how many days shook the world? 3. John Buchan was not only one of Canada's governors general, but a damn fine novelist, as well.

In fact, one of his "numerical" novels even became a Hitchcock movie. Which one? 4. One of Dodie Smith's most famous books talks about a quantity of coach dogs. Which one? 5. What catch keeps fictional pilots flying one suicidal mission after another? Answers on page C16 Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll "We fancy that any real child might be more puzzled than enchanted by this stiff, overwrought story." Children's Books Catch 22, by Joseph Heller "The book is an emotional hodgepodge; no mood is sustained long enough to register for more than a chapter." New York Times Book Review The Great Gatsby, by F.

Scott Fitzgerald "A little slack, a little soft, more than a little artificial, The Great Gatsby falls into the class of negligible novels." Springfield Republican Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert "Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer." Le Figaro The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway "Leaves one with the feeling that the people it describes really do not matter; one is left at the end with nothing to digest" New York Times A Tale ofTwo Cities, by Charles Dickens "It was sheer dead pull from start to finish. It all seemed so insincere, such a transparent make-believe, a mere piece of acting." Century Magazine, 1897 Expecting Laski to gush over his son's work, he sent him a copy. What he got was something else entirely, something not exactly fit for a jacket blurb, and reprinted in the January issue of Harper's: "(I regret) deeply that you let him publish it. For while it is the book of a lad with brains, it is very immature, it has no real structure, and it dwells almost wholly on the surface of things. In a good university, half a hundred seniors do books like this as part of their normal work in their final year I don't honestly think any publisher would have looked at that book of Jack's if he had not been your son, and if you had not been ambassador." Now that's refreshing.

IT WAS GOING TO BE A THRILL A vicarious one, true enough, but a thrill nonetheless and now it's not. For those suffering from Monica withdrawal, another debilitating blow has landed: W.P. Kinsella and former harlot Evelyn Lau have settled their differences and his lawsuit will not be starting in May. Won't be starting at all, in fact. Readers may recall Lau's October 1997 article in Vancouver Magazine titled "Me and W.P." It spilled the beans on her two-year relationship with the West Coast author (who penned Shoeless Joe, later made into the Kevin Costner vehicle Field of Dreams) a relationship begun, he once said, because the two of them were among the few writers in this country who weren't "pretentious bastards." I'm sure if you asked him now if he feels that way, he'd say he was only half right.

Kinsella insisted the article invaded his privacy, so he sued Lau, nearly 40 years his junior, Vancouver Magazine and Douglas Coupland, who was guest editor of that issue and who, given the way his last book tanked, should probably concentrate on writing and not editing. And why did Kinsella sue? Well, maybe because of this: "Kinsella was old, strange-looking the light illuminated his yellow teeth, his jowls, his thin, straggling hair." But more likely it had to deal with the passages about his sexual performance, his health and his, er, lack of fashion sense. Basically, the stuff that bugs you about the other person long after they've dumped you. The settlement, by the way, involves Lau writing an apology to W.P. in next month's Vancouver Magazine.

WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE THE JOY I felt at being in Mexico when the Monica LewinskyBarbara Walters interview went down. Yes, I rejoiced at not having to partake in the inevitable post-interview discussions the next day by the water cooler: "What did you think? Did she seem thinner to you? What's phone sex?" So it was with a heavy heart that I returned to my cramped little apartment two weeks ago and found Monica Lewinsky staring at me from the cover of her pathetic book, Monica's Story, penned, of course, by the execrable Andrew Morton. (Sample: "Over the next few weeks, however, like blood seeping out from under a closed door, the awful truth began to But what's even sadder than this passage is that my local Chapters has listed Morton's book as their No. 1 selling non-fiction title. (Alarmingly, their No.

1 fiction seller is John Grisham's latest, The Testament, which can only mean one thing: The apocalypse is upon us.) Meanwhile, I'll gladly mail Morton's compost to any reader who e-mails me with his or her best reason to read it. READERS SHOULD PERHAPS CIRCLE August on their calendars. That's when Delacorte Press is releasing My Millennium Memoir: Who I Am, How I Feel, What I Think In the 21st Century. Here's their pitch to the bookstores: "With the millennium craze reaching a fever pitch, look for consumers to pounce on this keepsake journal with fill-in-the-blank entries to record nearly every possible detail regarding the turn of the century. No matter how readers decide to celebrate, years from now they'll remember how it all began with My Millennium Memoir, a time capsule waiting to be personalized." Show 'em they're wrong, please.

James Macgowan can be reached at jjaymzsprint.ca INSIDE THE CITIZEN'S WEEKLY AREA51C3-C5 David Pugliese travels the desolate portion of the Nevada desert known as Area 51 a cornerstone of American paranoia. APOCALYPSE SOON C4-C5 Alex Heard tells what happened when he accompanied a UFO hunter and his team to a promising location in the wilds of Minnesota. KEEP ON COUNTING C6-C7 The obsession with vampires has swept into ballet, TV, film, games, fashion and scads of books, Shannon Rupp reports. OSCAR BRAIN TEASER C8 As more than a billion viewers get set to watch the Academy Awards tonight, Alan G. Luke offers an Oscar trivia quiz.

MILLENNIUM ECLIPSE C9-C12 L. Robert Morris looks ahead to the Aug. 11 eclipse of the sun that will be seen by millions in London, Paris and other urban centres across Europe. TERRORS OF THE AMAZON C13B00KS Novelist Lev Grossman, upset with reviews of his book on Amazon.com, engages in an unspeakable act. KEROUAC'S CANDOUR C14B00KS Barry Miles' biography reveals how a weak and unlovely Jack Kerouac still made literature more honest, observes reviewer Jon Peirce.

WHOWHATWHYWHENWHEREH0WC18 A nod to those unsung inventions that smoothe our everyday lives but get no respect, fashion for a plastic world, and the Webby Awards. REGULARS DOUGLAS FETHERLINGC16 RICHARD PERRY C17 SCOTT ANDERSON C17 Published by the proprietor, Southam at 1101 Baxter Road, Box 5020, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M4 FAX: 596-8477 TEL: 596-8558 E-MAIL: cwthccitizen.southam.ca Russell mills Publisher and President Neil Reynolds Editor Lynn McAuley Editor of ihe Weekly Susan Allan Deputy Editor Mike Gillespie Julius Majerczyk Associate Editors Jennifer Jackson Books Editor Karen Smith Melanie O'Brien EJilorial Assistants Kit Collins Jordan juby Andreas heidf.brecht Dcsigtm Cover: Roger Ressmeyer used one exposure every seven minutes to reveal the moon's path against the rising sun's face during a solar eclipse on July 11, 1991, near Hawaii's Mauna Kea Observatory. For the shot during totality, the camera's filter was removed. Story on C9..