If you enjoyed David Auerbach‘s piece on Thomas M. Disch, we recommend you check out this overdue profile of Samuel R. Delany, whose magnum opus, Dhalgren, truly is “like Gertrude Stein: Beyond Thunderdome.”
The Modernist Master of Sci-Fi?
Fairytales Revived
Fans of Hans Christian Andersen, a new edition of The Little Mermaid was published on Tuesday. Artist Yayoi Kusama has illustrated the classic fairytale.
Punorrheic Analphysis
"In one of his last columns, published in March 1966, Flann O’Brien looked back on his catechism, compiled more than twenty years earlier, and described it as ‘an exegetic survey of the English language in its extremity of logo-daedalate poliomyelitis, anaemic prostration and the paralysis of incoherence.’ One month after writing that, he was dead, and yet within a year a remarkable renaissance was taking place, with the long-delayed publication of his great comic fantasy The Third Policeman and, soon afterwards, the first of many anthologies of the ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ columns, this one entitled The Best of Myles.” (Related: our own Mark O’Connell on the humor in O’Brien’s work.)
●
●
Meg Wolitzer YA
Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings has been a Millions favorite, so we're excited to hear about her next book, Belzhar, a young adult novel inspired by Sylvia Plath. The book comes out on September 30 and follows a 16-year-old grieving at a boarding school for fragile teenagers, where she and her classmates discover an alternate world. Wolitzer spoke to NPR about why she was drawn to YA. "Much of what adolescents feel seems set in relief, and much of what they experience is happening to them for the first time."
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
“My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.”
"If [Langston] Hughes and Cullen were competitors, of sorts, for the prize of principal African American poet of their generation, Cullen may have had an early lead, and during the later 1920s and early 1930s they were often discussed in tandem." At The Boston Review, Major Jackson takes a look at the career and legacy of Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen.
Tuesday New Release Day: Ghosh; Murakami; Hoffman; Jackson; Miéville; Brelinski; Crucet; Celt
Out this week: Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh; Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami; The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman; Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson; Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville; The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Brelinski; Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jeanine Capo Crucet; and The Daughters by Adrienne Celt. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
●
●
I still have my dog-eared first printing of Dhalgren. The experience of reading it and Gravity’s Rainbow are quite similar. They were both published in the early-to-mid ’70s — maybe there was something in the water.