“People used to wish that life could be as it is in books—that it could have the beauty, drama, and shapeliness that writers gave it. Today, by contrast, we hope desperately that life is not really like our writers portray it; in other words, we hope that writers are not representative men and women, but unfit beings whose perceptions are filtered through their unhealth. It is necessary to hope this, because if life were as it appears in our literature it would be unlivable.” Adam Kirsch explores the downside of literary nostalgia.
It Isn’t Even Past
Writing Blind
James Tate Hill shares his experiences as a writer who cannot read. “When I say I can’t read, I’m not referring to illiteracy, but to the large blind spots in my central field of vision that put an end to my unremarkable driving career a few months after my 16th birthday.”
In the Dark (of Space)
Originally, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey included more narration by co-writer Arthur C. Clarke, whose short story “The Sentinel” was the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s script. At the last minute, Kubrick decided to cut them out, which led to Clarke leaving the US premiere halfway through. In a piece for The New Statesman an old friend of Clarke’s explores his side of the story. You could also read Ted Gioia on a weirdly predictive ’60s sci-fi novel.
Football Book Club: Allie Brosh’s ‘Hyperbole and a Half’
This week, Football Book Club will be reading Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened — as well as chatting about Steven Millhauser’s Edwin Mullhouse, bemoaning our empty NFL-free lives, and weeping about the shittiness of our respective teams.
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A Book about Beauty
In his latest Year in Reading, Chigozie Obioma told us about Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty Is a Wound, “the howling masterpiece of 2015…a howl, an outrage, and a sheer burst of particular talent.” In an illuminating interview for Electric Literature, Kurniawan discusses the label “magic realism,” epic creation, and his ideas for his next novel.
Are You Experienced?
Who’s the Jimi Hendrix of Wordstock? Though it is unlikely to become a lasting cultural landmark the caliber of Woodstock, the recent Wordstock festival in Portland was nonetheless a runaway success for its 6,000 attendees. This piece on the London Book Fair has a decidedly different tone.
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The Alice Munroonie
Erdrich’s Love Medicine
In the latest from The Atlantic’s By Heart series, ex-Granta editor John Freeman discusses Louise Erdrich’s interpretation of Faulkner in Love Medicine. Pair with an essay on the pacing of Faulkner’s prose.
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