The latest issue of the University of Toronto Magazine has an informative, if slightly hagiographical, tribute to the literary critic Northrop Frye. This year marks a century since his birth.
Northrop Frye… “a prodigy whose promise was entirely fulfilled.”
Didion’s Perfect Synthesis
“Many writers write vexed introspection, or detail-oriented reporting, or counterintuitive cultural commentary, or lifestyle journalism. But so far only Didion has done all four in perfect synthesis, a prose that, at its best, can fire on every cylinder and work on multiple fields of the imagination at once.” In support of the Kickstarter project for the documentary on Joan Didion, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, Nathan Heller looks back over Didion’s writing career, her “imaginatively seductive” nonfiction writing and her carefully constructed confessionalism in a piece for Vogue.
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On Tour
Noah Charney writes for The Atlantic in defense of book tours, which “mostly entail maneuvering to get on radio shows or TV programs, and less glamorous elements, like attending bookstore readings where hardly anyone shows up.”
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RIP Doris Lessing
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing passed away last night at the age of 94. The author of The Grass is Singing, The Fifth Child and The Golden Notebook took home the Nobel in 2007 for “subjecting a divided civilisation to scrutiny,” in the words of the prize committee.
Cow Country
Deep Springs College in Eastern California is a “bonkers, hyper-isolated, working cattle ranch slash all-male two-year university” that caters to the Lonely White Male mythology. Deep Springs alumni have been awarded, among many other honors, Rhodes and Truman Scholarships, MacArthur “genius grants”, Pulitzer Prizes, and an Emmy. And now, dear readers, they’re building a women’s college which promises to be every bit as unique as its forebear. Yay?
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B&N or Bust
We need Barnes & Noble. Alex Shephard writes on the role of the retailer for publishers and readers. You could also check out our series on the Future of the Book.
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Lessons in Failure
“In eleven years, I’ve written four books: three novels and one story collection. Only the story collection has ever seen the light of day; the first two novels, including my thesis, were never published and the third novel is making the rounds with agents right now. I’d like to believe I’ve learned a few things about how fiction works over this time, but perhaps it is more accurate to write that I have learned how my fiction does – or in many cases, does not – work.” Michael Nye, who’s written for us before, shares his “Lessons in Failure and Writing a Novel” on the Missouri Review blog.
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