Leveling the kind of accusation that perhaps only such an esteemed writer can, Jonathan Franzen intimates that David Foster Wallace‘s nonfiction (such as “Shipping Out“) wasn’t exactly honest.
DFW’s Nonfiction
Scientology Revealed
Janet Reitman, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, spent five years researching Inside Scientology, which is reviewed here by Brook Wilensky-Lanford for The San Francisco Chronicle. Earlier this year, 'Million Dollar Baby'-screenwriter Paul Haggis spoke with Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker about L. Ron Hubbard's religion.
“Intellectual Terrorist”
If last year's The Marriage Plot was too brief a taste of semiotics for you, here's an interesting essay on Jacques Derrida, "the Samson to tear down the temple of structuralism," and his seminal 1966 American presentation on "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences."
Idolizing Hemingway
Robert Roper wonders whether or not Ernest Hemingway's death has "eclipsed his work." Elsewhere, Melville House wonders whether or not the FBI had something to do with it. The author's influence is as apparent today as ever before, though perhaps it's not his death that endures, but rather his perceived masculine mystique.
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Introducing The Offing
Trend alert: there's been a surprising proliferation of literary site spinoffs lately. First The Toast began The Butter, and then Electric Literature started Okey-Panky. Now the Los Angeles Review of Books joins the movement with The Offing, an online lit mag launching later this month.
Hemingway Double Shot
Got a couple thousand bucks lying around? You can place a bid on one of Ernest Hemingway’s love letters. Or, for a more modest price of "free," you can read Tim Weed's rumination entitled "Chasing Hemingway’s Ghost in Havana."
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Paying Hommage
There’s a new literary magazine on the digital shelves. The Neu Jorker is “an hommage d'triomphe” to a magazine with an eerily similar name.
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