Wake In Progress is a blog that records one artist’s “foolhardy attempt to illustrate Finnegans Wake.” (via The Rumpus)
Illustrating Finnegans Wake
Science Fiction’s Race Problem
How can science fiction writers invent aliens and entire planets but not include multifaceted characters of color in their fiction? At The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky discusses the genre’s equality problem and analyzes how race is viewed in everything from The Left Hand of Darkness to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. “When that future unthinkingly reproduces current inequities, it seems like both a missed opportunity and a failure of imagination.”
More Adler
It’s turning into Speedboat Week here, so why not spend the weekend with some of Renata Adler‘s most renowned nonfiction? Her controversial reassessment of Pauline Kael (featuring “A Limitless Capacity to Inquire,” one of the best found poems you’ll ever read) is at the NYRB, and her deep dive into l’affaire Lewinski can be found at the L.A. Times. Interestingly, as Sarah Weinman points out, Adler’s 2001 book about the Bilderberg Conferences still hasn’t seen the light of day. (“Who suppresses manuscripts? We do!”)
Color in Poetry
Recommended reading: “What is Color in Poetry” by Dorothea Lasky for Poetry. It’s a lengthy article but a thoughtful one, and, as a bonus, it includes some of Lasky’s childhood poetry. Pair with our earlier post about reading teenage poetry to crowds and you’ve got a theme for the day.
Say What?
If you’ve ever heard that literary skill is synonymous with a good memory, you’ve likely bemoaned your own forgetfulness, especially when it comes to important things. Tim Parks felt the same way, until he read a new book on forgetting, which led him to wonder how much knowledge we can retain. In The New York Review of Books, he tackles the paradox of the reader’s memory. You could also read our own Mark O’Connell’s review of Parks’s book Italian Ways.
“A quiet hero of contemporary literature”
At The Paris Review, a remembrance of Evan S. Connell, whose work has been cited as an influence by Jonathan Franzen, Lydia Davis and Zadie Smith.
The Pope of Trash Tours America
It’s only fitting that Baltimore’s City Paper has an exclusive excerpt from Carsick, the new book by Charm City’s Chosen Son, John Waters. After all, they did offer him some of their weed. Meanwhile, the Pope of Trash recently invited New York Magazine on a hitchhiking ride through Manhattan, his home away from home.
“The 14-day Forecast says Drake too for weeks”
Recommended Reading: “Views from the 6” by Emma Healey, which will soon become the best poem you’ve ever read about Drake.
One comment: