Half a century ago, it would have been inconceivable to think that one day, the clack of typewriter keys would disappear from daily life. The rise of the personal computer, in Sadie Stein’s words, turned an everpresent sound into a “living anachronism.” She reflects on the value of the typewriter in a blog post for The Paris Review Daily. (It might also be a good time to read our own Bill Morris on typewriters and pen pals.)
Clickity-Clack
The Iron Man
Sasha Dugdale believes that Ted Hughes’s greatest contribution to the world of poetry remains Modern Poetry in Translation, the magazine which got its start thanks to an off-hand suggestion by Hughes at a cocktail party in the mid-sixties. Here’s our review of Jonathan Bate’s recent take on the poet, Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life.
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Rake Studies
In the annals of Great Ladies’ Men in History, a few names stand out: Lord Byron, Don Juan, Casanova and — if a new biography by Alister McGrath is to be believed — C.S. Lewis.
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Listen Carefully
Recommended Listening: Poet Rachel Zucker speaks with Erika Meitner about straight-forward poetics and poetry as a tool for social justice.
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Internet Participation
Recommended Reading: The New Republic on public participation and the Internet. “Did you know that as originally conceived the web was supposed to be writable? That is, you wouldn’t just read a web page, but you’d be able to edit it, too, from right inside your browser.” Our own Elizabeth Minkel writes about fanfiction and its influence on academics.
Finding Mavis
Mavis Gallant, who passed away a year ago this February, published a total of a hundred and sixteen short stories in The New Yorker, which puts her on par with short story factories like John Cheever and John Updike. Yet by the time she died, she was penniless and alone, a fact which worried the few people in Paris who knew her well. In The Walrus, David MacFarlane examines what her writing meant to him. Pair with: Laurel Berger on her own fascination with the author.
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