Vulture reports that Paul Thomas Anderson wants to adapt Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel Inherent Vice for the big screen.
P.T. Anderson Wants to Direct Pynchon Novel
A Slumbering Rooster Begins to Twitch
2010 is soon to be over. That means that The Morning News Tournament of Books is almost upon us. Two excellent developments this year: 1) the folks behind the Rooster have released the longlist of titles under consideration to make the final 16 (including The Singer's Gun by our own Emily St. John Mandel) and 2) they have left one judging spot open that you (you!) can apply to fill.
●
●
The Girl With the Pigtails
Could it be for the best that Lisbeth Salander outlived her creator? Do writers own the rights to their own superstar characters, or do the rights belong to the readers? These questions and more are explored in a fascinating essay from The Atlantic. Here’s a Millions piece in which Pippi Longstocking is touted as Salander’s literary forebear.
TimesMachine
New York Times has a cool feature I was unaware of, letting you browse issues from 1851-1922 in all their original grandeur. Articles are also available for download as PDFs.
All in Our Heads
Ever since the advent of modern neuroscience, the language of the brain scientist has entered our common vocabulary. Words and phrases like "synapse," "chemical imbalance" and "hardwired" point to its relevance in contemporary culture. At Page-Turner, a look at how cognitive language and our notion of attention affects the way we think about fiction and music, with particular reference to On Beauty by Zadie Smith and Orfeo by Richard Powers.
●
●
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Iran Overload
My student and friend Paria Kooklan pens a guest piece at the Vroman's Blog about the popularity of novels about Iran--and penning her own. "I mean, the American public has a short attention span – Iranians are hot right now, but I can’t help wondering when the trend is going to die out. Next year, there may well be another trendy nationality: Iraqis, maybe. Or Tibetans. Or…I don’t know – the Bhutanese? Anything is possible."
Dido’s Lament
Listen to Tessa Hadley read her story “Dido’s Lament” from the August 8th and 15th issue of The New Yorker. If you’re looking for the Aeneid, we recently had Virgil day here at The Millions.
“Almost Like the Blues”
Recommended reading (and listening): "Almost Like the Blues" by Leonard Cohen.
They Weren’t All Grimm’s
You might say the discovery of 500 lost German fairy tales is, in and of itself, a type of fairy tale.
●
●
Paul Thomas Anderson’s trite, insufferably pretentious drivel is the antithesis of Pynchon’s masterful prose. This movie would be an abomination.