In lieu of an official trailer, the producers of the film adaptation of Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi have decided to release entire (but short) scenes of the movie one at a time. Here’s the first installment. After watching it, you may want to check out some other tiger literature, and luckily Nina Martyris can help you out with that.
A Novel Idea for The Life of Pi’s Film Adaptation
Nevertheless the Artiste Persisted
“A quick scan of the literature shows that the writerly gaze has been most often turned on male artists and their creative processes and passions.” Claire V Mullins aims to redirect this gaze with a list for Electric Literature of 11 novels about female artists, including Zadie Smith‘s latest, Swing Time, which we reviewed last year. Related: Elizabeth Silver on the rise of strong female characters and the death of the literary ingénue.
●
●
Rock Your Nox Off
Anne Carson‘s Kindle-defying Nox earns a rave from New York Magazine.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Ali, Ritter, Mason
New this week is Monica Ali’s “what if” novel about Princess Diana, Untold Story. Also out is Bright’s Passage, an effort, which readers appear to be taking seriously, by singer-songwriter Josh Ritter to cross over into literary fiction. Finally, short story master Bobbie Ann Mason has a new novel out, The Girl in the Blue Beret.
●
●
David Mitchell’s Next Novel
In an interview about his Russian fans, Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell shares some details about his next book project. Put simply, “It’s about an immortal being that gets reincarnated as different men and women,” Mitchell says.
Wells Tower on Your TV Screen
Talk about burying the lede. This article about Alec Baldwin’s return to television acting, and how he’ll be playing “a Rob Ford-type mayor of New York,” doesn’t make a big deal out of the show’s pilot writer. But it should. Because his name is Wells Tower.
The Humanity of Books
“To me a book is not just a particular file. It’s connected with personhood. Books are really, really hard to write. They represent a kind of a summit of grappling with what one really has to say. And what I’m concerned with is when Silicon Valley looks at books, they often think of them as really differently as just data points that you can mush together. They’re divorcing books from their role in personhood.” Digital pioneer and theorist Jaron Lanier fears that the Internet might be destroying not just literature, but also the middle class.
A6: Edith Wharton
At some point, you’ve probably had a daydream about a vending machine that sells books. Well, guess what. (There’s also a video guide.) (Thanks, Andrew)
●
●