The English Illiad, compared: a look at the translations of Robert Fagles, Anthony Verity, Stephen Mitchell, and more.
The Wrath of the Translator
Charlie Sheen’s Poetry
It was probably inevitable that someone would turn the ravings of Charlie Sheen into found poetry. But unlike similar collections “by” Donald Rumsfeld and Rod Blagojevich, this one offers us the opportunity to compare it to the real thing – Sheen’s early ’90s chef d’oeuvre, A Peace of My Mind.
●
●
John Jeremiah Sullivan Talks James Agee’s Cotton Tenants
Sit back and get comfortable, because you’ll want to take your time reading all 3,467 of John Jeremiah Sullivan’s words about James Agee, a once-forgotten manuscript, and even an example of “New” Journalism from the 17th century.
●
●
Across the Screen
“His books are not only obviously produced by an obsessive film buff (as evidenced by one wry recurring trick, the dates in brackets that follow even citations of celluloid ephemera), they often seem to want to be movies, as shown by another signature device, the way his protagonists – from the 1890s European spies and 1950s New Yorkers in the interwoven narratives of his debut, V. in 1963, all the way to Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge in 2013 – break anti-naturalistically into song like characters in musicals.” An argument that Thomas Pynchon writes fiction tailor-made for the cinema.
RIP Biggie
To celebrate her father’s memory, T’yanna Wallace, daughter of Christopher Wallace (better-known as Notorious B.I.G.) dropped by Hot 97 with her mother to discuss “her father, working, and relationships with Faith Evans and Lil Kim.”
●
●
Welcoming Ms. Woolf to Downton Abbey
The fourth season of Downton Abbey will have a treat sure to delight certain literary fans: a cameo from Virginia Woolf. The series will resume on US television next January, so you have plenty of time to hit the books before then.
●
●
In Context
At Signature Reads, Matt Staggs offers some reading suggestions in light of the discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws recently passed in Mississippi, North Carolina, and other states.
Marlon James Interviewed
“There used to be a time when people read literature to confront stuff. To experience things vicariously—whether it’s a forbidden scene or a forbidden idea. I think now we’re looking to literature for an escape from that. I’m not sure why that is.” Guernica interviews Marlon James, whose most recent novel A Brief History of Seven Killings was reviewed on the Book Report.