Michael Chabon takes on Finnegans Wake in The New York Review of Books. This is mandatory reading, class.
“Thus the unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude…”
Lost in a Book
World-building is an essential part of any story, but what about map-making? At Book Riot, two cartographers explain how they create the maps we see inside books. One cartographer’s perspective: “I really wanted to make a map that could easily be an artifact from the world of the book…. I came up with the idea that the map could be a page ripped from an atlas, and someone had written notes on it.” See also: Rob Goodman’s essay for the reader on world-building and its relationship to reality.
Dreamweaver
For the most part, Tolstoy is known as a realist, despite his work’s occasional dips into fancy. Yet the plotlines of his great novels featured long and important dream sequences. In The New York Review of Books, Janet Malcolm argued that Tolstoy was a master of dreams, using Anna Karenina as proof.
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You’re Invited
We have discussed the gender gap in literature more than once. At McSweeney’s, you’re invited to an all-male, all-white literary panel. Sounds fun.
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Natasha Trethewey Wraps Up Her Term as Poet Laureate
Robert Penn Warren was the subject of the lecture given by Natasha Trethewey last week. It was her final presentation as U.S. poet laureate, as her second term wraps up later this year.
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Into the Abyss
“The day is spent for the most part in a glorious solitude. Like the hunter who moves silently through the woods to check his traps, she moves through the library, cautiously avoiding those whom she knows. A single conversation would ruin the beauty and vastness of her silence. Today no such conversation occurs and she is happy.” Good luck not reading this narration of a graduate student’s life in the voice of director Werner Herzog, now. Here’s a great Herzog Millions piece, as well.
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How to Win a National Magazine Award
Medium spells out how to win a National Magazine Award. Your article should be over 6,500 words. (It also helps if you are a man.) Deena Drewis writes about sexism in our categorizations of women’s writing.
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