Not long after James Lasdun released his new book, Give Me Everything You Have, Jessica Freeman-Slade reviewed it for The Millions. Now, in the latest issue of the LRB, Nick Richardson offers his own take. (You could also check out our own Mark O’Connell’s interview with Lasdun.)
Tale of a Stalker, Ctd.
Raymond Chandler on How to Write Detective Stories
“The good detective story writer (there must after all be a few) competes not only with all the unburied dead but with all the hosts of the living as well. And on almost equal terms; for it is one of the qualities of this kind of writing that the thing that makes people read it never goes out of style.” Raymond Chandler’s 1950 essay, “The Simple Art of Murder” is a real gem.
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And They Lived Just Fine From There On Out
“Once upon a time a woman never got married, but had many fulfilling relationships, a job that kept her comfortable, an apartment that she got to decorate just for her, and hobbies that stimulated her mind.” Six fairy tales for the modern woman.
Ur Doing It Rong
"Skipping or skimming parts of a narrative should not only be expected but encouraged, particularly if an author is writing without clarity or purpose or showing off. Life’s too short to slog through some smarty-pants attempt to demonstrate a mastery of mechanical engineering or botany." Adam Kirsch and Anna Holmes face off for The New York Times Bookends column about whether there are right and wrong ways to read a book.
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Jane Eyre, Again
Coming in March: Yet another screen adaption of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Fukunaga. This one stars Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester. The trailer is here.
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Up South
"Young black fiction writers in the U.S. often face a strange obstacle as they try to figure out who they are — it’s called American literature. A high number of pre-civil-rights-era novels by white American writers are likely to include tossed-off racial slurs and/or stock black characters, some of which make racially conscious readers want to hurl the book across the room, even if the wooly-headed pickaninnies are only peeking around a doorjamb on one page out of 400. There are exceptions, but shockingly few. You always have to brace yourself — always." James Hannaham writes about growing up in Yonkers but finding himself in Southern literature.
AutoSummarizing the Classics
Graphic designer Jason Huff takes the one hundred most downloaded copyright-free books and reduces them (pdf) using Microsoft Word 2008’s AutoSummarize 10-sentence function. Book Bench highlights several of the absurd - if occasionally poetic - results.
Hart Crane: Remix Artist
“Samuel Greenberg belongs in the pantheon of literary manqués,” writes Jacob Silverman. The poet was a favorite of Hart Crane, who described him as “a Rimbaud in embryo.” But did Crane take his adoration too far? Did he in fact “remix,” re-purpose, or plagiarize some of Greenberg’s work?
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