The Public Domain Review takes a look at the “Class of 2013,” a k a their “top pick of artists and writers whose works will, on 1st January 2013, be entering the public domain.” Among the names highlighted is Robert Musil, whose novel The Man Without Qualities was reviewed on our site by Matthew Gallaway.
The Class of 2013
Baumbach to Direct Emperor’s Children
Whoever decided to sign Noah Baumbach to adapt Claire Messud‘s The Emperor’s Children for the screen has a good feel for the material (Keira Knightley and Eric Bana are also attached). One kind of has to wonder about Richard Gere, though…the Murray Thwaite role is clearly destined for Brian Cox, or vice versa.
Calling All Foer-Besotted 10-Year-Olds
Spotted on the streets of New York: a casting call for a “10-13 year old Caucasian male” to play protagonist Oskar Schell in Stephen Daldry‘s upcoming film adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Notable Goyim Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock are attached to the project, as Oskar’s parents.
●
●
Building the Labyrinth
“When gender’s not there, it sort of leaves room for us to focus on these other differences—and most of them end up being insignificant, too.” An interview with Emma Ramadan, translator of Anne Garréta’s Sphinx, on writing, translating, and understanding genderless characters.
●
●
A Campus Novel Classic
University Of Chicago Press has come out with a new edition of a somewhat forgotten classic in the campus novel genre. Randall Jarrell was a National Book Award-winning poet who wrote only one novel, Pictures from an Institution, about the fictional Benton College. The Kenyon Review published the opening of the novel in its Winter 1953 issue. It begins: “Half the campus was designed by Bottom the Weaver, half by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Benton had been endowed with one to begin with, and had smiled and sweated and spoken for the other.”
●
●
Gun Wizard
What do you call a genre that mixes westerns and fantasy novels? Damien Walter proposes the term “weird western.” In The Guardian, he runs down the history of the hybrid category, citing Joe Abercrombie’s Red Country and Molly Tanzer’s Vermillion as examples. Pair with Daniel Kalder on the Euro-Western.
The Posterity Problem
Measuring a writer’s success is tricky. An author might make The New York Times Bestseller List now but only be a footnote in an encyclopedia a century later. At The Guardian, D.J. Taylor wonders what contributes to a writer’s posterity and concludes a pushy publisher or sponsor is often a writer’s best asset. Pair with: Our essay on how John Updike fans attempt to maintain his reputation.
One comment: