In a video introduced by Paul Yoon, James Salter (who was recently interviewed by our own Sonya Chung) speaks about his time in France and his experience writing A Sport and a Pastime.
“You could say that the book [A Sport and a Pastime] is a long poem to provincial France.”
Digital Eustace
Sparksheet interviews Blake Eskin, the New Yorker’s first and only web editor, who shares the venerable magazine’s unique approach to having an online presence. (via)
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Read Like A Victorian
The website Victorian Serial Novels lets you experience 19th-century novels “serially and in their cultural contexts.” Select your author, the timespan within which you want installments to come, and enjoy.
How to choose what to read first? Not to worry, these six Dickensian experts have you covered.
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Kafka’s Wound: A Multimedia Treat
The London Review of Books sought out Will Self to help create “a digital literary work that pushed the boundaries of the literary essay well beyond its traditional form.” The effort, they hoped, would “loosen and enhance the structure of the essay, changing the way the reader interacts with the text.” Well, consider that a success. Behold, “Kafka’s Wound” in all its multimedia glory. [Bonus: Millions readers in the UK can catch Will Self’s discussion of the digital essay on September 6th.]
I Can Haz Russian Masters
In her “Classic Russian Writers: For Teh Internets” column at McSweeney’s, KA Semënova “updates classics of Russian literature with modern technologies to see if the insights of those writers hold up today.” Her first two pieces explore Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” and Vsevolod M. Garshin’s “The Signal.”
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If Charlotte Lucas were a cat
“If a modern film version of Pride and Prejudice were produced today, some of the main characters should be gay, Elizabeth and Darcy should not get married at the end, and Charlotte Lucas should be played by a tabby cat.” Laura Fairchild reveals her students’ ideas for new adaptations of Jane Austen novels while meditating on what Austen can or can’t teach us about modern relationships.
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