On illness — real and imagined — and art
My appreciation of Brian Dillon’s The Hypochondriacs is up at NPR. If you have health problems, or worry that you have health problems, or both, you should read this book.
People who never get sick might enjoy it, too — if only for the opportunity to feel superior while jogging around the park [...]
Banville on The Infinities, and more
“If I’m anything I’m a post- humanist.” John Banville talks with Anne K. Yoder. (See also.)
New book from Jergovic in 2011
HLO interviews Miljenko Jergovic, author of the excellent Sarajevo Marlboro, who apparently also works as a journalist. (Via.)
Nabokov’s The Original of Laura as performance art?
Vladimir Nabokov famously instructed his wife Vera to destroy his final, unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, if he didn’t live to complete it. At his death, the draft consisted of a stack of notecards which he’d shuffled through, added to, and rewritten right up until the end.
Vera, having once saved an early version [...]
Dolen Perkins-Valdez at Girls Write Now’s Chapters
The first installment of Chapters, the Girls Write Now reading series I’m curating, will feature the talented Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of the new novel Wench.
She’ll be introduced by my friend and fellow board member Tayari Jones, and after her guest reading, several of the girls will share their own work. The event [...]
Prize for arts & literature blogging
Robert Pinsky is judging 3 Quarks Daily’s Arts & Literature Prize for blog entries written after February 21, 2009. First prize is $1000. Nominate your favorites.
Concerning E.M. Forster
Matthew Price calls Kermode’s new study of E.M. Forster “a disappointing mishmash of biography and criticism,” more flat than round.
That baleful glare
Jay Atkinson visits Flannery O’Connor’s Milledgeville, quotes Harry Crews, makes me wonder how many of us found our way to her from his class. (See also.)
Asking the questions: the Walker Percy documentary
Winston Riley has posted a new teaser for his Walker Percy documentary. This one coincidentally relates to my recent post (and your comments) about the interconnectedness of stories and ideas.
While Percy was laid up with tuberculosis, he read Thomas Mann and other “literature of the alienated self.” He also immersed himself in Heidegger, Kierkegaard, [...]
NYC public school librarian defends Precious
The formidable Ishmael Reed (Mumbo Jumbo) argues, in “Fade to White,” that responses to Precious (trailer above) break down along racial lines, with white viewers applauding its candor, and black viewers infuriated by its offensive, ham-handed stereotypes.
This stratified response is no surprise, he says, because the film intentionally panders to white audiences: “In guilt-free [...]
The Bible and medical science
J. Keir Howard ponders the complicated influence of the Bible on modern medicine. (Eternal OUP disclosure.)
After Clifton’s passing
“[E]very shut-eye ain’t sleep, every goodbye ain’t gone.” Elizabeth Alexander on Lucille Clifton.
Breaking news: The secret history of Cracker Barrel
Last year I wrote a story about the secret history of Cracker Barrel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and, possibly, the Illuminati. I did this for Significant Objects, a project whose goal is see whether a writer can infuse an otherwise worthless object with value through fiction. In so doing, I raised a little (very little) bit [...]
Also, he’ll probably sign your whole stack of his books
Yes, says James Hynes, Robert Stone belongs to the “great tradition of semi-mad, oracular American writers railing [about sin], but even his grimmest books are infused with mordant wit.”
What is left after negation
“What you can finally not say ‘no’ to”: Mark Vernon, spurred by reading of Iain McGilchrist, contemplates the essentially negative exchange between the hemispheres of the brain.
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