You might think that the co-author of Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona would be able to partake in the Spanish city’s annual event without suffering any injuries. Unfortunately for Bill Hillmann, that’s not the case.
Maybe His Advice Isn’t So Great After All
An Unwelcome Invitation for László Krasznahorkai
You can read the entire first chapter from László Krasznahorkai’s latest novel, Seiobo There Below. We reviewed the work on our site last month. Meanwhile, the Hungarian author has recently received an unwelcome invitation. As literary scholar Tibor Keresztúry notes (via George Szirtes’s translation), “a certain G Fodor Gábor, the strategic director of the Századvég (Century’s End) Foundation … suggests that [Krasznahorkai] should shoot himself in the head.”
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“I have always wondered.”
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “Diary” for the Financial Times features the Mars Curiosity, Quaker school songs, and all sorts of family bonding.
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A Nation of Poets
“Mr. Walt Whitman has imagined that a certain amount of violent sympathy with the great deeds and sufferings of our soldiers, and of admiration for our national energy, together with a ready command of picturesque language, are sufficient inspiration for a poet. If this were the case, we had been a nation of poets.” A young Henry James reviews Whitman’s Drum Taps.
Trigger warning: Breakups ahead
Kim Addonizio‘s latest collection of short stories, The Palace of Illusions, is due out this month. Here is a sneak peek, the story, “Another Breakup Song,” featuring a distinctly Raymond Carver-esque vibe.
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Appearing Elsewhere
My (very) short story “Pretzel Girl” is up at FiveChapters; it’s part of their second annual Infinite Chapters series, wherein a story is posted each day for a little over two weeks. So far, there are stories by Paul Yoon and Jami Attenberg, among others.
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“The point is not satisfaction”
“The peace may be holding, but the process is faltering,” writes Colum McCann, forty years after the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, in his evaluation of Ireland’s present relationship with the “Troubles.” “It is, of course, naïve to expect total reconciliation,” he continues. “Some grievances are so deep that the people who suffered them will never be satisfied. But the point is not satisfaction — the point is that the present is superior to the past, and it has to be cultivated as such.”
“I can’t rely upon sex and violence to sell my books”
Meet Libi Astaire, the “Jewish Jane Austen” and a major figure in the burgeoning Haredi literary scene.
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