Retelling a classic story in your own style is a classic way of learning how te become a Great Writer. J.M. Coetzee has nothing left to prove in that area, with a Nobel prize and two Booker in his prize cabinet. Still, Coetzee rewrote the well known Crusoe story (after winning his 1st Booker prize) resulting in the novel ‘Foe’. Why? (more…)
In the legendary movie ‘Down by law’ by Jim Jarmush three refugees (Roberto benigni, Tom Waits and John Lurie) ride a small boat in unkown territory. When they reach a familiar location, one of them exclaims: “We Keep Going in Circles”. At this exact moment the boat begins to sink. And so it is with destructive habits and vices we are unable -or even unwilling- to shake off. (more…)
“Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is an intentional attempt to dumb down for a mass audience Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.” Exactly my thoughts while attempting to read TDVC. Steve Sailor treats us to an elegant comparison review of the two, ending with a Borghesian discovery.
I prefer to read books way after the first appearance, after the review dust has settled, the hype or literary fatwa has faded and -if lucky- the book is nothing more than a sparkling dot on a starry night. If it is still worth reading in this (final) habitat, it’s a good book. If it’s (still) able to stir your perspective on your personal universe, it’s great. (more…)
Carver had been up all night reviewing Lish’s severe editorial cuts wo stories had been slashed by nearly seventy per cent, many by almost half; many descriptions and digressions were gone; endings had been truncated or rewritten and he was unnerved to the point of desperation
More on Raymond Carver’s relationship with his friend and editor Gordon Lish at The New Yorker
“He seemed to be quite unexpectedly (for human despair seldom leads to great truths) on the verge of a simple solution of the universe but was interrupted by an urgent request.” Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin.
According to the Literary Encyclopedia, Pnin is the most accessible of Nabokovs novels. I personally found it rather boring, but even in his less interesting works (again, a subjective matter) little beauties can be found.
To Greeks of the generation that fought the Persian Wars, memorizing vast swaths of the Homeric poems and being able to comment on them with facility constituted a liberal education in itself.
More on Alberto Manguel’s new book at The Washington Post
Podhoretz detected a suppressed cry of brutality in the Beats , which he summarized as kill the intellectuals who can talk coherently, kill the people who can sit still for five minutes at a time, kill those incomprehensible characters who are capable of getting seriously involved with a woman, a job, a cause.
More on the generation of 58 at New York Times
