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The philosophical novel?

Can a novelist write philosophically? Even some of those considered among the most philosophical have “answered with an emphatic no.” See also Percy & Kierkegaard.

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R.I.P. Reynolds Price

“Writing is a fearsome but grand vocation—potentially healing but likewise deadly. I wouldn’t trade my life for the world.” — Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011)

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On creating the feeling you want the reader to feel

“Do you think writers have to feel what they want the reader to feel when they’re writing?” I asked my friend Alex Chee in email this weekend, after reading a new story of his that powerfully evokes the kind of moony, depressive, sickeningly self-reflective state I’ve been in. “Because the end of this novel draft is completely kicking my ass. I . . .

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Bolaño on Twain and Melville

“Twain is the day, Melville the night.” Roberto Bolaño on the influence of the “two main lines of the American novel”: he preferred Melville, but said he owed a greater debt to Twain. (Via; see also.)

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