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"Pynchon novels, like certain dishes, tend to suffer only from excessive explanation. I advocate surrender to Pynchon; letting your mind toss on the wild currents of his language is a lot more enjoyable than treating his novels like puzzles, wondering where the pieces fit: Who is Rachel Owlglass? Why are we in Egypt? Just enjoy the bumps—or try to."
— Alexander Nazaryan looks back at Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, “V.” as it turns fifty: http://nyr.kr/16mlGZv(Source: newyorker.com)
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Judith Thurman on “a startling literary coincidence” in the work of Margaret Fuller and Emily Dickinson: http://nyr.kr/15Q9EoV
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Patrick Radden Keefe on the slippery questions raised by “In Cold Blood” and the obsessive interest in its making: “For years, Alvin Dewey insisted that ‘In Cold Blood’ was factual, and the humble lawman’s stamp of approval was evinced, by those who were inclined to believe the book, as a badge of its accuracy. He had furnished Capote with the access and materials to tell the true parts of his story, and had permitted the author to stretch the truth, in making, of Dewey, a hero. He was, in this subtle sense, a co-conspirator.” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/Xv4xH9
Photograph by Bruce Davidson/Magnum.
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In Boston, in 1999, at a celebration of the centennial of Ernest Hemingway’s birth, I had the honor of sitting on a panel with Achebe, on the subject of writing about Africa… An evidently confused woman in the audience took the opportunity to ask “In what sense are you writers about Africa?” The other panelists—Nadine Gordimer and Kwame Anthony Appiah—were too baffled to respond. Not Achebe. He leaned into his microphone, and very slowly and melodically, with rolling “R”s and drawn out “O”s, roared: “Read. Our. Books.” The woman said, “But I’m asking you.” And Achebe said, “I’m telling you: Read. Our. Books.”
What better epitaph for the man, and what better way to remember him today: read his books.
"— Postscript: Chinua Achebe, 1930-2013: http://nyr.kr/ZSm6mm by Philip Gourevitch -
Two Hells→
What is the temperature in Hell? Is it hot or cold?
Brad Leithauser writes about hot Hells and cold Hells, from Dante to Robert Frost: http://nyr.kr/15woO2r
The heat I’m talking about has little to do with traditional hellfire. It’s the hell of overheated emotions. Wind is a prevailing weather condition: gusts of storming rage. Molten waves of unrequited lust break and sprawl on its rocky shores. It’s a place where rationality collapses. Nothing is predictable. You can’t count on your adversary for anything—even to act in his own self-interest. His fury may be such that he’d embrace mutual destruction before seeing you escape his wrath…
The evil genius of Cold Hell typically takes the form of a designing schemer. It’s a spider—or a wizened, dark, spidery wizard. It’s Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, Moriarty. It’s Fu Manchu. It’s the flattering, unctuous creature that proffers a tainted apple, whether the Bible’s serpent or Snow White’s witch…
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When the Money Gets Too Big
George Packer on Anthony Trollope’s London in “The Way We Live Now,” and our New York: http://nyr.kr/Zx2EMM
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I saw and heard something remarkable just a few hours ago, something I’m not likely to forget until all the mechanisms of remembering are shot and I’m tucked away for good. Philip Roth celebrated his eightieth birthday in the Billy Johnson Auditorium of the Newark Museum last night with the most astonishing literary performance I’ve ever witnessed….
David Remnick on the Roth-endorsed, Roth-attended 80th birthday celebration of Philip Roth: http://nyr.kr/160afX8
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Video Games and Storytelling
Maria Bustillos interview Tom Bissell, who wrote Gears of War, about the potentialities of video games as literature: http://nyr.kr/15YCl57
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Why I Am a Thief
Editors’ note: In 1902, Mary MacLane, a nineteen-year-old-girl from Butte, Montana, published a book detailing her fantasies, her outrageous philosophical ideas, and intimations of her own genius. The book was a sensation, selling a hundred thousand copies in its first month, and launching her into a short but fiery life of writing and misadventure. A template for the confessional memoirs that have become ubiquitous, “I Await the Devil’s Coming,” is being published in a new edition by Melville House this week.
Here’s an excerpt: http://nyr.kr/Ykht64
Photograph: Library of Congress.
(Source: newyorker.com)
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What We're Reading→
For this installment of What We’re Reading— a series in which New Yorker staffers share their literary engagements of the week— Caleb Crain writes about Charles Williams’s supernatural thrillers: http://nyr.kr/WKmOoY
