More Is More In Donna Tartt's Believable, Behemoth 'Goldfinch'

If you're a novelist who takes a decade or so between books, you can only hope that your readers remember how much they loved you in the past. It's a saturated market out there, and brand loyalty doesn't always extend to novelists.

But ever since the news broke that Donna Tartt's new book The Goldfinch would soon be published, many readers have been waiting in a state of breathless excitement. They've never quite gotten over how much they loved Tartt's 1992 novel, The Secret History, a tale of friendship and murder set at a college, which went on to become not only an international hit but also one of those rare books that are read over and over, in hopes of reliving that initial literary rush.

Would Tartt's latest book inspire the same kind of devotion? After all, she published a second novel, The Little Friend, that was frequently described as a letdown. Is The Goldfinch more like The Little Friend, or — fingers crossed — The Secret History?

As it turns out, it's not much like either The Secret History or The Little Friend, and if I hadn't known that Donna Tartt had written it, I would never have guessed. This dense, 771-page book tells the story of a boy named Theo Decker, whose mother is killed in a terrorist act early in the novel. In the midst of the trauma and chaos, Theo steals a famous painting, "The Goldfinch," by the Dutch painter Carel Fabritius, setting the sweeping, episodic story in motion.

Several reviewers have compared her book to Oliver Twist, but when I started it I was more reminded of the Harry Potter series (a comparison that is actually made later in the book). The contemporary plot is often nervily improbable and outsized, and Theo, age 13 at the start, is a lot like Harry, in that both boys are gifted, tender-hearted and woefully unsupervised. Theo's scar, while deep and permanent, is of the invisible kind.

Donna Tartt's other works include The Secret History and The Little Friend.

Bruno Vincent/Getty Images

Donna Tartt's other works include The Secret History and The Little Friend.

Bruno Vincent/Getty Images

The day The Goldfinch arrived I promptly cracked it open, remembering how my sons would pounce on the latest Harry Potter on the day it was published. J.K. Rowling transformed a generation of kids into passionate readers. Donna Tartt does something different here — she takes fully grown, already passionate readers and reminds them of the particularly deep pleasures that a long, winding novel can hold. In the short-form era in which we live, the Internet has supposedly whittled our attention-spans down to the size of hotel soap, and it's good to be reminded that sometimes more is definitely more.

So we get a whole lot of Theo here, and also his friend Boris, a kid with a Ukrainian passport and a multi-national history who befriends him after he's forced to leave New York City and go live with his deadbeat dad and his dad's new girlfriend Xandra in a horrible development in Las Vegas. Boris is a great character — totally appealing, a victim of appalling parental neglect, and together he and Theo forge a friendship that's believable, destructive, and comical:

"Don't go!" said Boris, one night at his house when I stood up toward the end of The Magnificent Seven" ... "You'll miss the best part."

... "You saw this movie before?"

"Dubbed into Russian, if you can believe it. But very weak Russian. Sissy. Is sissy the word I want? More like schoolteachers than gunfighters, is what I'm trying to say."

The Las Vegas section is long and detailed, just like all the other sections of this novel. Tartt almost seems to be writing in real time, and yet I was never bored. A series of long set pieces moves the story from the suspenseful opening to the rich, dense, leisurely middle and eventually the action-packed end, which is set in Amsterdam. That part, weirdly, feels as if it was grafted on from a different novel. Or no, it almost feels as if it was grafted on from a particularly literate, stylish indie crime film on the Sundance Channel.

But the occasional disjointedness doesn't affect the overall success of the novel, which absorbed me from start to finish. While The Goldfinch delves seriously and studiously into themes of art, beauty, loss and freedom, I mostly loved it because it kept me wishing I could stay in its fully-imagined world a little longer. Donna Tartt was right to take her time with this book. Readers will want to take their time with it, too.

Meg Wolitzer's latest novel is The Interestings.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/21/239075604/more-is-more-in-donna-tartts-believable-behemoth-goldfinch?ft=1&f=1008
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Official BBM how-to videos show the ropes to new users

Got BBM on Android? Here are the basics.

BBM is starting to get (kinda-sorta) rolled out today on Android, and to get folks acclimatized, BlackBerry has posted a few how-to videos on their YouTube channel. Videos show how to manage groups, how read/delivered receipts work, handling multi-person chat, checking status updates, sharing files, and adding contacts.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/L-lP313jW_8/story01.htm
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SF Transit Strike Has Commuters Facing Gridlock

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Frustrated San Francisco Bay Area commuters started the work week on Monday facing gridlocked roadways and long lines for buses and ferries as a major transit strike entered its fourth day, increasing pressure on negotiators to reach a deal that resumes train service.

There were signs of movement from the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency and its unions, but no new talks were scheduled. Federal investigators, meanwhile, were searching for clues to a weekend train mishap that killed two workers.

Many commuters left for work before dawn only to wait for buses and ferries and sit in traffic. Some said the accident, while tragic, didn't affect their feelings about the strike.

BART has said a four-car train carrying several employees was returning Saturday from a routine maintenance trip and being run under computer control when it struck workers inspecting a section of track in Walnut Creek.

The Contra Costa County Coroner's Office identified the victims as Laurence Daniels, 66, of Fair Oaks and Christopher Sheppard, 58, of Hayward. BART has said one was an employee and the other a contractor, but further details weren't immediately available.

The train was not carrying any passengers due to the strike.

"I think the issues that led to the strike are still there," said Peter Goodman, an attorney who was waiting to pick up additional riders at a carpooling stop. "It may create some additional sympathy for the BART workers, but I think overall it's going to be determined by the economic issues."

Traffic leading to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was already snarled for miles by 6 a.m. At BART's station in Walnut Creek, the line for charter buses was at least a hundred-people deep before dawn.

By 7:35 a.m., BART reported that only two of the nine stations offering charter buses had available seats.

"We need BART to be running right now," Karen Wormley said as she waited for a bus in Walnut Creek. "I need to get to work."

BART, the nation's fifth-largest commuter rail system, has an average weekday ridership of 400,000.

BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said Sunday that transit officials and labor leaders had been in contact but there were no plans to return to the bargaining table.

BART presented what it called its last and final offer a week ago but is open to restarting the negotiations if that is what a federal mediator overseeing the process wants, Trost said. The transit system's directors plan to hold a special closed meeting on Monday.

Amalgamated Transit Union local president Antonette Bryant said she would put BART's final contract offer before members for a vote this week, However, she expects it will be rejected.

Officials have said the two sides generally agree on economic issues but came to an impasse over work rules, including the length of work days and when overtime pay kicks in, the union said.

The ATU and Service Employees International Union said a proposal submitted to BART on Sunday would allow for changes in work rules related to implementing new technology and retain rules related to safety, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Trost said the agency would take a look at the offer.

Meanwhile, a federal investigator said the train that killed the two workers didn't have a front-facing video recorder. Interviews, inspections, audio recordings and camera footage from the train's cab should provide enough evidence to determine a cause, they said.

It could take several weeks to determine if the work stoppage or the way BART management deployed non-striking workers played a role in the fatalities, said Jim Southworth, the National Transportation Safety Board's railroad accident investigator-in-charge.

BART officials said Sunday that they could no longer discuss the accident because of the ongoing NTSB investigation.

The workers were the sixth and seventh to die on the job in the 41-year history of the system.

The ongoing investigation at the collision site could delay the resumption of service if the strike ended immediately, Southworth said.

On Sunday evening, transit workers held a candlelight vigil for their colleagues.

___

Associated Press writer Haven Daley contributed to this report. Cone reported from Fresno.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=238877952&ft=1&f=
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'Frustrated' Obama vows to get malfunctioning healthcare website fixed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama declared himself frustrated on Monday with the malfunctioning website that is central to his signature healthcare law and vowed to take steps to fix it.

Scrambling to get ahead of a burgeoning political uproar over implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Obama took to the White House Rose Garden to insist the law is bigger than just a website and that eventually the bugs in the software will get worked out.

Online insurance exchanges were launched on October 1 under the 2010 law, often called "Obamacare," to offer health insurance plans to millions of uninsured Americans.

But people trying to shop for health insurance at healthcare.gov have been frustrated by error messages, long waits and system failures, with many failing to make it through the system despite repeated tries.

The president acknowledged the depth of the problem.

"There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am," Obama said.

Republicans strongly oppose the law and have begun to focus intense criticism on the healthcare system's rollout. The law is the most important domestic policy achievement of Obama's presidency.

The president, standing with a number of Americans who have enrolled successfully using the system, encouraged uninsured Americans to pursue alternative means to sign up for coverage, pointing them toward phone call centers and saying those who tried but failed to get into the system would be contacted personally.

Fresh expert assistance, including some of the best technology talent in the country, is being brought in to repair the website, he said.

"Nobody's madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," he said.

The White House said last week that Obama still has "full confidence" in Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose department is responsible for implementing the law.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Editing by Will Dunham)

• Politics & Government
• Government
• Barack Obama

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/frustrated-obama-vows-malfunctioning-healthcare-website-fixed-160255893.html
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The Sony Xperia Z1S Might Be a Mini Z1 For Everyone Else

Remember the impressive-looking Xperia Z1F handset, shrinking down the flagship Sony Xperia Z1 to a more pocketable size? Some bad news; it’s pencilled in only for Asian markets. The good news? Looks like we’re getting the Xperia Z1S instead, which is basically the same phone, with a different name.

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/PPGDN_SZTq4/the-sony-xperia-z1s-might-be-the-mini-z1-for-all-the-wo-1448993863
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Amid new attacks, Egypt's Copts preserve heritage

THE RED MONASTERY, Egypt (AP) — Locked inside a 6th century church in a desert monastery are some of the jewels of early Christianity — ancient murals in vivid pinks, greens and reds depicting saints, angels and the Virgin Mary with a baby Jesus, hidden for centuries under a blanket of black soot.

Italian and Egyptian restorers are meticulously uncovering the paintings, some of the earliest surviving and most complete examples of early Coptic Christian art. But the work, in the final stages more than a decade after it started, is done quietly to avoid drawing attention — and there's no plan to try to attract visitors, at least not now.

"This is our heritage and we must protect it," said Father Antonius, abbot of the Red Monastery where the Anba Bishay Church is located. He takes it as a personal mission to protect it. The church's heavy wooden door has only two keys. He keeps one and a young monk he trusts keeps the other.

"I don't think there is a church anywhere in Egypt that even begins to match the beauty of this one," Antonius said, beaming like a proud father.

The little known Anba Bishay Church offers a striking example of how Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Church jealously guards its heritage against formidable odds — whether decades of neglect, discrimination by the Muslim majority or the violence by Islamic militants, who have gained significant power since the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The protection of its heritage took on greater urgency when 40 churches were wrecked, burned and looted in a pogrom-like wave of attacks in August, blamed on Islamic militants. Coptic leaders say the attacks are the worst in centuries.

The attacks laid bare a worrisome failure or unwillingness by authorities, as well as moderate Muslims, to protect the churches. Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 90 million citizens, were left with their deepest sense of vulnerability in recent history. Egypt's powerful military pledged with great fanfare to restore the churches. But Christians say that, two months later, they are still waiting for concrete steps.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is one of Christianity's earliest branches. It was born in Egypt, and almost all Egyptian Christians throughout the centuries have belonged to it. But it never ruled in Egypt. Instead, Copts were subjects in a succession of empires, from the Romans and Byzantines through various Muslim dynasties.

The result is a complicated legacy. A historic sense of persecution engrained a deep secrecy in the Church, which has long turned inward for its own protection. The lesson that Copts long absorbed — take care of yourselves and don't involve outsiders — has been applied to their conservation efforts.

Complicating those efforts, the Copts' material civilization is fragile. They have not left mighty stone temples, tombs and mosques like Egypt's pharaonic or Muslim rulers, noted Imad Farid, an expert on historical Coptic architecture.

Instead, Copts traditionally built in mud brick, which deteriorates over time, especially in the eroding moisture and floods in the Nile River valley. Desert monasteries, preserved by aridity, constitute most of what is left of Coptic civilization. They have been the traditional repositories for the Church's artistic treasures, from icons and murals to rare manuscripts.

Past generations of Copts "left us not with a history of rulers but of a people and their daily lives," Farid said. "The monasteries have preserved their way of life. They are like conservation zones for human and intellectual heritage."

But many monasteries were abandoned over the centuries, in part because of a shortage of monks. Over time, their mud brick chapels and hermit cells fell prey to elements, earthquakes or depredations from Bedouin attackers.

For example, the Red Monastery and the nearby White Monastery were once united in a sprawling complex to which some 5,000 monks belonged. Both were deserted by the 8th century and have only been resurrected in the last 30 years.

"Our heritage is disappearing because of random restoration work, urbanization and the work of the ignorant. I don't want future generations to curse us for not documenting what we have now," said Father Maximus, a monk and one of the church's top conservation experts.

A slender 59-year-old who carries an IPad and an IPhone wherever he goes, Maximus has led a team of Italian restoration experts traveling across Egypt since 1996 to save as much as they can of Coptic heritage. His team, including Egyptian experts and backed by the American Research Center in Egypt, has worked on the murals of Anba Bishay Church since 2002, in the desert on the edge of the Nile River valley, some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Cairo.

The Anba Bishay Church, modeled after Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre with an intricate array of niches and columns, is considered the most complete historical church structure in Egypt.

"It is a very unique church and now it is in a very good condition," enthused Maximus. He says the work is a battle against time — to "protect the physical Coptic heritage, to prevent it from disappearing."

The attacks in August illustrate the latest danger to Egypt's Coptic culture.

Among the 40 churches attacked was a 1,600-year-old church gutted by fire and stripped bare of its contents. Others were built in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Most of the attacks took place in southern Egypt, an underdeveloped region with a combustible mix of powerful Islamic radicals and sizable Christian communities.

Some of the attacks began as retaliation for the Christians' support of the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in a popularly backed July 3 military coup.

But they devolved into an orgy of looting. In some cases, looters dug under altars searching for buried treasure.

Widely held myths of hidden wealth have been fueled by the Church's traditional secrecy, said Bishop Biemen, abbot of the Monastery of Archangel Michael, near the southern city of Luxor.

"Because we have been hurt so often, we have become an insular community. That has created a sort of mystique about us that included tales of priceless jewels hidden in churches," he said.

In a recent tour of southern Egypt, The Associated Press found Christians still grieving over the loss of churches.

As a show of resilience, some have held Masses and weddings in the blackened shells of churches, using only a makeshift altar. Still, priests say, some worshippers have stayed away, too hurt to see the condition of the churches where they lived out milestones like weddings, baptisms and funerals.

"God, please be merciful to us and don't abandon us," Father Boutros said in a recent early morning Mass at the John the Baptist Church in the town of Abanoub, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Cairo.

"God, please save us from the evil ones," he said, as the congregation of around two dozen women and a handful of men repeated after him.

During the service, two church workers acted as lookouts outside, in case of renewed hostility by Muslim extremists. Schoolchildren dropped in for a quick prayer or communion on their way to classes.

The church's walls were blackened. Icons and murals, destroyed or stripped away in the looting, were replaced by posters of John the Baptist, Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Because the pews were burned or stolen, worshippers sat on rented chairs with dirty red velvet upholstery. Light bulbs were powered by a wire strung in from outside the church, since its own electrical system was destroyed.

"To burn a church is to burn the heart of every man who comes here to pray to God," said Maher Nakhlah, a 42-year-old U.S.-trained English teacher attending the Mass. "It is difficult to understand how a place where people pray and which is void of any hatred could be attacked."

In the nearby city of Assiut, the Gothic structure of the Franciscan Church of Saint Theresa, built by Italians early in the last century, remains largely intact after Muslim militants set it on fire.

But the damage inside betrayed a worrying hatred for the Christian faith.

A wooden statue of the Virgin Mary was decapitated, and the hands chopped off. The face, hands and feet were also bashed off a porcelain sculpture of Saint Theresa, dating back to 1924. One of the church's two confessional booths was torched.

Friday Mass at the church is now held earlier in the day so congregants can leave and lock the church gates before Muslims finish their noon prayers at the nearby mosque, used by ultraconservatives.

"We don't want trouble," Father Bishara Ayoub said.

"The problem is not one of material loss, it is to do with psychology" said Jihan Bramble, a Christian engineer. "This is the price of freedom for now. But our persecution will continue indefinitely. It always has."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amid-attacks-egypts-copts-preserve-heritage-061403067.html
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Facebook to let teens share with bigger audience

FILE - This Feb. 8, 2012 file photo shows a view inside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble. The change announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 affects Facebook users who list their ages as being from 13 to 17. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - This Feb. 8, 2012 file photo shows a view inside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble. The change announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 affects Facebook users who list their ages as being from 13 to 17. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble.

The change announced Wednesday affects Facebook users who list their ages as 13 to 17.

Until now, Facebook users falling within that age group had been limited to sharing information and photos only with their own friends or friends of those friends.

The new policy will give teens the choice of switching their settings so their posts can be accessible to the general public. That option already has been available to adults, including users who are 18 or 19.

As a protective measure, Facebook will warn minors opting to be more open that they are exposing themselves to a broader audience. The caution will repeat before every post, as long as the settings remain on "public."

The initial privacy settings of teens under 18 will automatically be set so posts are seen only by friends. That's more restrictive than the previous default setting that allowed teens to distribute their posts to friends of their friends in the network.

In a blog post, Facebook said it decided to revise its privacy rules to make its service more enjoyable for teens and to provide them with a more powerful megaphone when they believe they have an important point to make or a cause to support.

"Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard," Facebook wrote.

The question remains whether teens understand how sharing their thoughts or pictures of their activities can come back to haunt them, said Kathryn Montgomery, an American University professor of communications who has written a book about how the Internet affects children.

"On the one hand, you want to encourage kids to participate in the digital world, but they are not always very wise about how they do it," she said. "Teens tend to take more risks and don't always understand the consequences of their behavior."

The relaxed standards also may spur teens to spend more time on Facebook instead of other services, such as Snapchat, that are becoming more popular hangouts among younger people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though, says that the company's internal data shows its social network remains a magnet for teens.

Giving people more reasons to habitually visit its social network is important to Facebook because a larger audience helps sell more of the ads that generate most of the Menlo Park, Calif., company's revenue.

"What this is really about is maximizing the kind of sharing at the heart of Facebook's business model," Montgomery said. She worries that unleashing teens to share more about themselves to a general audience will enable advertisers to collect more personal data about minors "who aren't aware that their movements and interests are under a digital microscope."

Facebook hasn't disclosed how many of its nearly 1.2 billon users are teens. The social network was initially limited to college students when Zuckerberg started it in 2004, but he opened the service to a broader audience within a few years.

The teen audience is large enough to give Facebook periodic headaches. As its social network has steadily expanded, Facebook has had to combat sexual predators and bullies who prey upon children.

Facebook doesn't allow children under 13 to set up accounts on its service but doesn't have a reliable way to verify users' ages.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-16-Facebook-Teen%20Privacy/id-5cdead4bf9fd401f91f949b0dc852f47
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