If you’ve ever wondered what the life of an M.F.A. student looks like, here’s your answer.
The M.F.A.? C’est Super!
Ask Zadie Anything
"Fiction is messier. Essay is, for me, an attempt at a kind of clarity. I have a very messy and chaotic mind, but when I’m writing an essay I find I can exert a bit more control over it.” The The Guardian published a Q&A with Zadie Smith with questions from fellow authors, politicians, and fans. Smith's upcoming essay collection, Feel Free, is featured in the first half of our 2018 Great Book Preview.
“I am thankful for death”
It’s fun to imagine what literary titans might have thought had they witnessed modern pop culture. In that vein, here is a monologue, delivered by T.S. Eliot, on seeing the play Cats for the first time.
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Writerly Obligations
Do writers owe their readers engagement on social media? “Our sole obligation to readers is to write the best books that we possibly can,” our own Emily St. John Mandel told The Guardian. Pair with our piece on the best of literary Twitter.
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Intrinsic Flaws
Ever since Paul Thomas Anderson announced his intention to film Inherent Vice, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing over whether it’s even possible to adapt a Thomas Pynchon book for the screen. Now that it’s out, Geoffrey O’Brien investigates how faithful the movie is to the book, and whether or not that’s a good thing. Related: our own Garth Risk Hallberg’s review of the book when it came out.
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The Cool Kids
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History and Story
In a piece for Public Books Rebecca Steinitz reviews some recent historical novels, including The Luminaries and The Invention of Wings, and argues that the best historical fiction "plunges the reader wholly into the past, enlightening and entertaining us, while also making us reflect on our present, in history and in literature." Pair her piece with Laila Lalami's account of "How History Becomes Story."
Hard to Define
"Every single book or painting or piece of music exists and we take from it what we need and love and shape it into another narrative that goes out into the world or stays within us, so it’s this great thing of one narrative piling onto the next. It’s hard to define." Miriam Toews talks with The Rumpus about her novel All My Puny Sorrows and the distinctions, or lack thereof, between autobiography and fiction.
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