A couple of Pale King odds & ends: N+1 reruns Benjamin Kunkel‘s astute DFW memoriam, and Jonathan Raban tackles the religious side of the Wallace weltanschauung for the NYRB. (Whither Wyatt Mason?)
More Pale King
Judging an Author by the Cover
Nowhere, Indiana
“Only the moon can judge Indiana. It’s a state that mostly gets ignored, and occasionally ridiculed, by the rest of the country, but no matter. Anyone is welcome to come here and see a reflection of themselves in the unlikeliest places, no matter what any law says.” Adam Fleming Petty on “Writing from the Nowhere State.”
The Wildebeest
At Page-Turner, Daphne Merkin reads Catherine Lacey’s Nobody Is Ever Missing, which follows the journey of a disenchanted New Yorker as she hitchhikes her way through New Zealand. The novel, Merkin writes, features what Leslie Jamison, in her recent essay collection, termed a “post-wounded woman.”
Alexandre Dumas in the Kitchen
Most people know Alexandre Dumas for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, but fewer people are aware of what he considered his masterwork: Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine.
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