Variations on the right to remain silent
“Silence is as important as words in the practice and study of translation.” Anne Carson on the language of gods in Homer.
“Silence is as important as words in the practice and study of translation.” Anne Carson on the language of gods in Homer.
In A.S. Byatt’s forthcoming novel, The Children’s Book, a children’s author visiting a museum in search of inspiration for a magical story she’s writing hears a great anecdote but has “the feeling writers often have when told perfect tales for fictions, that there was too much fact, too little space for the necessary insertion of inventions, which would here appear . . .
The heat of August is upon us, but none of the languor for me. I’m buried in deadlines, my stepdaughter, A., is visiting, and she, Max, and I head to Tampa tomorrow for a quick visit with my father-in-law, who’ll soon be undergoing another cycle of chemo. A., brilliant as ever, is almost sixteen now, so we’re sharing more books. . . .
On Oscar Wilde’s library: “he always came to life via books, literally seeing reality through them.”
Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf biographer Hermione Lee discusses her new book, Biography: A Very Short Introduction.