Reading Hermione Lee’s biography of Edith Wharton, I’ve been fascinated by the descriptions of Wharton’s writing process, which was by turns scattershot and obsessive. She started and abandoned projects willy-nilly, but when she focused on something, she rewrote sentences over and over again. Wharton’s own writing life was, after 1899, so high-voltage, so prolific and efficient, that it is startling . . .
Bad news: Technical difficulties prevented me from recording Friday night’s Calvin Baker/Colson Whitehead discussion on Branding and Freedom in the Market Economy. It’s a shame, too, because the authors spoke so intelligently, and with such warmth — they’re friends, as it happens — that we didn’t lose a single audience member over the course of the evening. I’ve tried to . . .
I really do recommend subscribing to Harper’s — provided you have a week to fall into the archives as into a very deep well where your favorite dead authors happen to have stashed their work. Which is to say: I thought I’d read all of Mark Twain’s essays, but no, no, and no. Here’s an excerpt from a joyous 1906 . . .
The Brooklyn Rail has launched In Translation, and is seeking your submissions of translated fiction and more.
“A page produced on a manual typewriter was like a record of the torture of thought.”