Archive for December, 2006

Why Thomas Hardy gave up fiction writing

Either I skipped Thomas Hardy’s April 1912 postcript to the preface of Jude the Obscure when I first read the novel, or I was less fascinated at twenty-one with the effect of criticism on novelists. Probably I skipped it, though. Creative paralysis has always interested me. Some writers are so assured of their brilliance and vision and way with language . . .

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Goodnight, cruel moon!

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Hear Vladimir Nabokov, that showman, read from Lolita, Pale Fire, and more. Also, learn why he detested Freud. (Via.)

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez attended Castro’s 80th birthday party; ill health prevented the dictator’s own appearance.

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My weird fundie elementary school taught me to diagram sentences. In this I evidently am anomalous.

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