Claire Messud: “A woman’s rant” [National Post] "Over the last week, discussion surrounding Claire Messud’s new novel, The Woman Upstairs, has shifted from the book to an
interview its author recently gave to Publishers Weekly, in which Messud took issue with the following question: “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you? Her outlook is almost unbearably grim.”
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on May 10, 2013 -
23 comments
The Turn Against Nabokov [newyorker.com] "The author, whose novels thrum with ironic recurrences, might have been perversely pleased with this: thirty-six years after his death and twenty-two years after the fall of the Soviet Union with all its khudsovets, Vladimir Nabokov is, once again, controversial."
posted by Fizz
on Feb 28, 2013 -
44 comments
Post & Prejudice: [guardian.co.uk] "The Royal Mail is joining in the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice with the release of a series of stamps featuring all six of Jane Austen's novels. Royal Mail commissioned the artwork by Angela Barrett."
[Slideshow]
posted by Fizz
on Feb 24, 2013 -
13 comments
Royal Bodies by Hilary Mantel "I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn’t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren’t they interesting?"
posted by Fizz
on Feb 17, 2013 -
53 comments
Happy Thomas Pynchon rumor day! [LAtimes.com] "What's that, you say? America's most reclusive author, Thomas Pynchon, appeared in the news Friday -- not once but twice? Why, yes, yes, he has, surfacing in two unconnected rumours. Conspiracy? Pynchonian? Maybe we should henceforth designate Jan. 4 as Thomas Pynchon Rumor Day."
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on Jan 5, 2013 -
40 comments
An “Infinite Jest” atlas. The Infinite Atlas Project is an independent research and art project seeking to identify, place and describe every possible location in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. The project includes:
Infinite Map- a cartographic infographic poster identifying 250 of the most interesting locations from the novel.
Infinite Boston-a ruminative travelogue and photographic tour of key locations in and around Boston, Massachusetts.
[Previously]
posted by Fizz
on Sep 7, 2012 -
24 comments
To Use and Use Not: [NYTimes.com] "In an interview in
The Paris Review in 1958 Ernest Hemingway made an admission that has inspired frustrated novelists ever since: The final words of “
A Farewell to Arms,” his wartime masterpiece, were rewritten “39 times before I was satisfied.” A new edition of “A Farewell to Arms,” which was originally published in 1929, will be released next week, including all the alternate endings, along with early drafts of other passages in the book."
posted by Fizz
on Jul 8, 2012 -
19 comments
Maurice Sendak, Children’s Author Who Upended Tradition, Dies at 83 [NYTimes.com] "Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn."
posted by Fizz
on May 8, 2012 -
290 comments
A Stephen King interview: by Neil Gaiman "I interviewed Stephen King for the UK Sunday Times Magazine. The interview appeared a few weeks ago. The Times keeps its site paywalled, so I thought I'd post the original version of the interview here. (This is the raw copy, and it's somewhat longer than the interview as published.) I don't do much journalism any more, and this was mostly an excuse to drive across Florida back in February and spend a day with some very nice people I do not get to see enough. I hope you enjoy it."
posted by Fizz
on Apr 28, 2012 -
51 comments
'My son got a very low mark': Writer Ian McEwan describes the odd experience of helping his son with an A-level essay about one of his novels, Enduring Love, and finding his son's teacher disagreed with his interpretation of the novel. This is an excerpt from Ian Katz's interview with McEwan at the Guardian's Open Weekend festival on 24 March 2012.
[Full Interview]
posted by Fizz
on Apr 11, 2012 -
80 comments
Literary Style: 15 Writers' Bedrooms: Truman Capote,
Virginia Woolf,
Ernest Hemingway,
Flannery O'Connor,
Alexander Masters,
William S. Burroughs,
Slyvia Plath,
Henry David Thoreau,
Victor Hugo,
Emily Dickinson,
Miranda Seymour,
Mary Roach,
Marcel Proust,
Michael Morpurgo,
William Faulkner.
posted by Fizz
on Apr 4, 2012 -
29 comments
Language of the Land: Journeys into Literary America: The inspiration for this exhibition was the
Library of Congress's collection of literary maps--maps that acknowledge the contributions of authors to a specific state or region as well as those that depict the geographical locations in works of fiction or fantasy. Throughout the exhibition, these colorful and varied maps reflect the contributions of authors to specific states or regions and locate their imagined people and places. Through these maps, authors' words, images, and characters, Language of the Land presents a tapestry of the impressions that endure in our collective imagination of the American land and its culture.
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on Mar 31, 2012 -
4 comments
And the winner of the Good Sex Award is... "...recognizing the best sex writing in fiction from the past year. We've
[salon.com] convened a panel of literary star judges -- Walter Kirn, Maud Newton, Louis Bayard and Salon's own Laura Miller -- to reward the best-written, most interesting and most convincing piece of sex writing published in a novel in 2010."
No 2.,
No. 3,
No. 4,
No.5,
No. 6,
No. 7,
No. 8. The
2010 Bad Sex Award Winner.
posted by Fizz
on Feb 15, 2011 -
15 comments
Martin Amis hates children, ok, not children but children's literature. "People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book," Amis said, in
a sideways excursion from a chat about John Self, the antihero of his 1984 novel Money. "I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable." Remarks about children's books made by Martin Amis on the BBC's new book programme
Faulks on Fiction, broadcast this week, have caused anger and offence among children's writers.
posted by Fizz
on Feb 11, 2011 -
111 comments
"'Jewish people don't own the Holocaust." ...at least according to Yann Martel.
via the Guardian. "The inescapable fact about the book, Martel's long-awaited follow-up to Life of Pi, is that it has not been very well received. In the US the reviews were what one politely calls "mixed"; in the UK they have been uniformly hostile. The general view is that pretty well all fictional treatments of the Holocaust are doomed, and that this one – about a blocked writer who meets a taxidermist writing a play about "the horrors" who is probably a former Nazi seeking some sort of catharsis – is more doomed than most."
posted by Fizz
on Jun 23, 2010 -
138 comments
British Literature Blogs is the brainchild of six British literary bloggers. Each working hard at bringing readers to forgotten or overlooked books, our BritLitBloggers decided that combining their latest blog entries together in one place would highlight the breadth and depth of British literary blogging.
posted by Fizz
on Jun 2, 2008 -
2 comments
Waggish Reads Proust Reading
In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past, is quite the daunting task. Whether you've read Proust, or are considering reading Proust for the first time, a helpful summary & guide, that examines significant passages for your own discussion.
posted by Fizz
on May 27, 2008 -
46 comments
