A brief interview with John Banville
Q: What distracts you from writing? A: Thoughts of money and death, and … the sexiest painting I know. — From a John Banville Q&A. See also Banville on death: not fear but fury.
Q: What distracts you from writing? A: Thoughts of money and death, and … the sexiest painting I know. — From a John Banville Q&A. See also Banville on death: not fear but fury.
James Baldwin, “like Emerson, renounced the pulpit—he had been a fiery boy preacher in Harlem—and readers have found in the writings of each the atmosphere of church.”
My mystification that Muriel Spark isn’t more widely read has continued to grow, but last week her editor, New Directions publisher Barbara Epler, offered a theory in email that echoes what Howard Jacobson has said about the devaluation of comedy in literature. “The fact that she is so unbelievably and witchily entertaining,” Epler argues, “has kept her from her full . . .
Jessa, on our often-conflicting tastes: “one of us will be ecstatic about a book, and the other politely says, ‘Yeah, I didn’t read that one.’” See also. Takeaway: read Somerset Maugham.