A scholar studying Jane Austen’s original manuscripts finds “we have simply overestimated her as a perfect English stylist at the expense of how experimental she was.”
Reconsidering Jane
Everything That Rises Must Be Filmed
Recommended Listening: this episode of the Ryder + Flye podcast in which Jason Diamond and Margaret Eby discuss Southern Catholicism, 70s cinema, and why it's so darn hard to make Flannery O'Connor's stories work on the screen.
Speaking with Greenwell
Recommended Reading: The Paris Review Daily interviews Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You, possibly the next great gay novel.
Les Cousins Dangereux
Downton Abbey, meet Arrested Development: Arrested Downton. Speaking of the stunningly popular Downton, The Missouri Review is having a "non-contest;" enter by channeling the voice of your favorite author to describe the world of the show. Our own Garth Risk Halberg might be able to help you out, with his essay on Downton's literary pedigree.
Olga Slavnikova on Reading Roulette
The Morning News continues its ongoing Reading Roulette series by sharing "A Light Head" by Olga Slavnikova. While the author is a contender for the 2013 Russian Booker Prize, TMN correspondent Elizabeth Kiem doesn't need to wait to award "best line" to this little ditty: “The Russian dilemma posed by Dostoyevsky—‘Shall I let the world go to hell or skip my tea?’—has been resolved in favor of the tea.”
e-reading Thomas Pynchon
After years of resistance, Thomas Pynchon is only now allowing for his work to be sold as ebooks.
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John Jeremiah Sullivan on William Faulkner
Do I need to hype this one up? I shouldn’t. John Jeremiah Sullivan writes about William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, or what some call the “greatest Southern novel ever written.”
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Art & Illness
At the Guardian, Brian Dillon writes about great creative minds who had fertile imaginations for the maladies that befell them.
Celebrating Beverly Cleary
With her 95th birthday approaching, Beverly Cleary gets the profile treatment in the Times. (previously at The Millions: Cleary's underappreciated memoirs)