At Slate, Rosecrans Baldwin notes “Pick up just about any novel and you’ll find a throwaway reference to a dog, barking in the distance.” Amazingly enough, he’s right.
In the Distance, a Dog Barked
A Detestable Dichotomy
Paulo Coelho recently condemned Ulysses for being all style and no content. In response, Ali Smith makes the case for style.
James Franco’s Syllabus
Before James Franco’s class began, he assigned each of his students to conceive a short film inspired by a different C.K. Williams poem about “decay, but also a sense of memory and rejuvenation.” This November, the class will travel to Detroit to shoot the movie.
Bio Unbound
At Salon, Cornel Bonca reviews Roth Unbound, a new “hybrid” biography of Roth that New Yorker staff writer Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote after months of interviews. Although the book glosses over Roth’s personal flaws, it gives a great overview of his work, Bonca writes.
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Anxiety or Discipline?
Recommended Viewing: This installment of The Paris Review’s “My First Time” series, in which poet Ben Lerner remembers “working under the sign of crisis” and attempting to find a publisher for his first book, The Lichtenberg Figures. A couple of Lerner-related pieces from The Millions: a review of his newest novel, 10:04, and a Year in Reading from back in 2014.
Dear Alice
Last week in the LRB, Christian Lorentzen used a review of Dear Life to slam the critical consensus surrounding Alice Munro. At Salon, Kyle Minor defends the author, who he thinks “demonstrates that the short story can operate out of a formal dexterity no less expansive in its possibility than the novel’s.”
I just checked my own manuscript. No far off dog barking, but some dog-related imagery. I have one visual image of a dog that isn’t central to the story. Does that count?
I loved this article–and not only because it mentions the wonderful Nic Brown! (He’s a pal.) I’m looking forward to Baldwin’s book.