Don’t tell Paul Murray, but apparently “string theory,” much beloved by artists and fringe physicists alike, has zero proof to back it up.
The Problem with String Theory
By Heart
“Everyone says Anna Karenina is about individual desire going against society, but I actually think the opposite is stronger: the way societal forces limit the expression of the individual.” Here is Mary Gaitskill on Anna Karenina for The Atlantic’s By Heart series, in which writers reflect on some of their favorite passages in all of literature. We’ve brought you a bit on By Heart here, here, and here.
5 Under 35
The National Book Foundation announces its annual list of 5 under 35 writers.
La Grande Mort
“A coroner’s pronouncement of suicide (felo da se) resulted in forfeiture of the deceased’s goods and property to the state, often leaving any surviving relatives destitute. So the increasingly common verdict of temporary insanity (non compos mentis) may suggest a change in how people understood the act of self-destruction: no longer construed as a demonic temptation, it came instead to be viewed as a symptom of lunacy.” On the prevalence of suicide in eighteenth-century English literature.
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E-reading with Jonathan Franzen
It was with “a sort of resigned sigh” that Jonathan Franzen signed some reddit user’s kindle.
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An Infinity in Reading
“Calling yourself depressed when you’re a writer seems so redundant.” On a year in reading Infinite Jest with Anna Fitzpatrick at Hazlitt. Be sure to check out the new fan-designed cover for the twentieth anniversary edition of the book.
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The Salman Rushdie Channel
Slate’s got a video interview with Salman Rushdie in three parts, and his speaking agency has released a rare video from one of Rushdie’s previously unrecorded talks, where the man describes writers as much more vulnerable than ideas.
Tuesday New Release Day: Bock; White; Rogan; O’Connor; Tempest
Out this week: Alice & Oliver by Charles Bock; Our Young Man by Edmund White; Now and Again by Charlotte Rogan; Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings by Stephen O’Connor; and The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kate Tempest. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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New Releases Tuesday
Today sees the arrival of a unique title from the Center for the Art of Translation. Wherever I Lie Is Your Bed provides translated poetry and fiction from 30 writers and is meant to introduce English-speaking readers to writers whose work would otherwise be difficult or impossible to find in English. Elsewhere, the biggest literary release of the week is Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura, which has caused no small amount of consternation among critics, and Alice Munro’s latest collection, Too Much Happiness, which can be expected to be more warmly received. On the non-fiction side, a new collection of Zadie Smith essays came out last week.
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To be fair, string theory makes sense mathematically, and the reason we haven’t proved it yet and might not be able to prove it any time soon is purely due to limited technology. Read Brian Greene’s The Hidden Universe for a layman’s explanation of the current sitch with string theory.