“The Goldfinch is a grand nineteenth-century novel in that it is an 800-page chronicle of capitalism, a paean to the ways in which the world turns on the questions of who can or can’t pay for what, and how these abilities and inabilities mold us over time. Like the life events and relationships it depicts, it purports to be about love but is actually about money. This portrayal of twentieth century North American society is accurate, but also, just as in life, both exhausting and demoralizing.” On Donna Tartt’s latest novel. (You could also read Adam Dalva’s take on the book.)
Capital Idea
Narrating the Coup
“In times of tension it is particularly important to defend what is good, identify what would worsen the status quo, strive for balanced assessments, always hoping for the best, and try to identify and oppose any and all steps toward coercive authoritarianism.” Richard Falk narrates the coup in Turkey at Guernica.
Bolaño At the Movies
Writing for Slant, Bill Weber reviews Il Futuro, a film is based on an as-yet-untranslated novella by Roberto Bolaño. Previously, JW McCormack expounded on the prospect of adapting the Chilean author’s masterpiece, 2666, into a motion picture.
No More Nice Girls
n+1’s Research Collective has posted the introduction to Ellen Willis’s No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays (1992), and plans to post a series of essays by the seamless activist and writer– “Her refusal to subsume her personality to a movement, or to ignore the things that were important to her, remains an inspiration.”
Nicole Krauss Interview
Nicole Krauss and Robert Birnbaum discuss — among other things — Francis Bacon‘s studio.
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