Craig Fehrman digs up and posts the Details‘ 1996 profile of David Foster Wallace that is mentioned a few times in Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself but has until now not been available online.
DFW Details
Bad Feminist, Good Quiche
After the Times Magazine published their interview with Roxane Gay — in which the Bad Feminist author and Year in Reading alum delves into the title of her latest book and talks about her love of Sweet Valley High — the crew at McSweeney’s dug up a humor piece the author published in 2010. If you can read the title without laughing, you are more stoic than I am: “I Am Going to Cook a Quiche in My Easy-Bake Oven and You Are Going to Like It.”
Translating Wonderland
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the world’s most translated books. In German alone, there are over 40 different translations. A new project published by Oak Knoll Press devotes three volumes to exploring the challenges of translating Carroll’s wit, puns, and linguistic tricks in 174 languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu.
The Other Image
In an author photo investigation, Matthew Shear and Sven Birkerts discuss standard poses and the anomalous picture of Birkerts that appears in The Other Walk. Pair with this Millions essay about the perils of designing the cover of Lolita.
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What’s Next? The KGB Bar Run By the Real KGB?
Over at Salon, Joel Whitney explains how The Paris Review worked with the CIA and “served, in part, as a covert international weapon of soft power.” While the possibility is certainly tantalizing, it’s necessary to read Whitney’s article alongside Carolyn Kellogg’s piece in the LA Times, which notes how “the threads of the article … become unsupportably tenuous” as it carries on.
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