Now that NPR has begun fact checking his work, it’s come to light that David Sedaris is a liar. Or, he sort of embellishes. His work is ‘realish.’ So basically, he tells stories. On NPR. Which is feeling pretty sensitive abut the line between truth and truthiness after the Mike Daisey upset.
Truthiness and the Realish
War Stories
Matthew Jakubowski writes an experimental review of the first English translation of Mercè Rodoreda’s final novel, War, So Much War. Pair with this excerpt from the novel, which appeared in the new issue of Harper’s.
Discussing The Worm
“Magic I think for me is kind of personal. Like, as soon as magic is in play, then I am given permission to imagine a different world, one in which magic things might happen—one where maybe I get some magic to wield if I’m lucky. Where cool stuff might happen at any given moment, cool stuff you wouldn’t even guess at. And for as long as the story holds, I’m kind of living in that world.” John Darnielle talks with Colin Winette about E.R. Eddison‘s The Worm Ouroboros, reading high fantasy and writing Wolf in White Van.
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Sex Appeal
You may remember the brouhaha surrounding Bustle, the first website in history to market primarily to women. Now, in this week’s New Yorker, Lizzie Widdicombe profiles the website, which she describes by pointing out that “[its] articles are modest, but the ambitions of its founder, a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Bryan Goldberg, are not.”
Trailer for Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Part 10: Space Hygiene: “Unfortunately, removing the helmet created a situation where the body odors were forced out of the neck of the pressure suit…” Check out this funny and artful trailer for Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.
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Hats Off to the World’s First Chinese Laureate
On Thursday, the fiction writer Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which marks the first time a Chinese writer has won the prestigious award. Lauded for his command of “hallucinatory realism,” Yan (whose pen name translates to “not talking” in Mandarin) has drawn comparisons to Faulkner for the complexity of his fictional settings. Back in 2005, John Updike published his thoughts on the writer.
Sedaris is a humorist, working in a long, honored tradition. Did people think James Thurber or Mark Twain didn’t exaggerate? Exaggeration is the crux of humor. NPR, sigh.