“For too long I have been aggravated by the unabashed exploitation of the thieving filmmaker. He profits shamelessly from my existential despair.” Say hello to Henri, the Existential Cat.
La Nausee
Feel the Tingle?
Recommended Reading: On Chuck Tingle, self-published writer of gay erotica, who beat the notorious Sad Puppies at their own game: “Question: If you could pick a single writer to make an effective, compassionate statement about identity politics to a divided literary community, who would you pick? Would it be a schizophrenic, autistic person who’d authored an e-book called Space Raptor Butt Invasion?”
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So many wobbly assumptions
Laura Miller pokes some holes in that Dartmouth study about how little classic literature appears to be influencing contemporary writers.
Let’s Talk Poetry, Shall We?
Willard Spiegelman’s provocative essay in the VQR’s recent State of American Poetry issue, “Has Poetry Changed?” incited quite a few responses. One of the better rejoinders came from William Childress, whose response, “Is Free Verse Killing Poetry,” raises some excellent points. “Poetry needs readers, not writers,” writes Childress. “But how many poets read any poetry but their own?”
Moonstruck
Margaret Wise Brown was nothing if not an interesting figure. The Goodnight Moon author, whose life is the subject of a new biography, loved hunting, partying and staging stunts, among them founding a club that claimed they could reschedule Christmas. She kept homes in Greenwich Village and a tiny island off Maine. At Slate, Laura Miller reads the new book by Amy Gary. You could also read our own Jacob Lambert’s critical review of kid’s picture books.
Red Scare
“Marx the anti-Communist is an unfamiliar figure; but there were undoubtedly times when he shared the view of the liberals of his day and later, in which communism (assuming anything like it could be achieved) would be detrimental to human progress.” Wait, what? The New York Review of Books reviews Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life.
A Thing of Beauty
“Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising ‘to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,’ though he was typically vague about his actual plans.” The New York Times‘ Michiko Kakutani writes a review of Volker Ullrich‘s new Hitler biography, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939, so timely it could easily be an op-ed. Just read it. And when you’re done, read this too.
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