“I believe that just as much as teens fear time, adults do as well. It would be selfish of us to think that they can understand and accept our evolution into adulthood much easier than we can. Maybe in reality, teenagers and parents are scared of the same things.” The LARB runs a 15-year-old reader’s honest review of The Fault in Our Stars.
Another Perspective
“So we baste on, birds within the oven, burned back ceaselessly into the past.”
November’s still a way’s away, so that gives you plenty of time to learn and master F. Scott Fitzgerald’s turkey recipes.
Brutality and Pragmatism
“Will anyone in America give a damn about Beig? It’s hard to imagine our glittering zeitgest machine ever getting behind her, with her landscape, her women, her knowledge of the secret lives of animals born for the hatchet. Her writing, so invested in the disappearing rural world, is particular, yes, but universal: her characters love and long and pine away.” Matthew Neill Null is unsatisfied with how American readers have treated the work of the great German novelist Maria Beig. He makes a passionate case in her favor in this new essay over at The Paris Review.
Love Letter Requiem
“I think of the book as a love letter in the form of a requiem.” Our own Emily St. John Mandel, whose novel Station Eleven was recently shortlisted for the National Book Award, was interviewed for Omnivoracious about writing, apocalypse and the beauty of the modern world.
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Writerly Q & A
We’re pleased to announce a new feature here on The Millions, “Ask the Writing Teacher.” Our own Edan Lepucki will now be taking your questions about all things writing related, dialogue, plot, point of view, or other elements of writing that might be putting a pickle in your prose. Send your questions her way at askthewritingteacher[at]gmail[dot]com
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Dear Diary
Earlier this week, our own Thomas Beckwith reported on the Hermione/Ron scandal. Now, Mallory Ortberg has penned Ron Weasley’s secret diary at The Toast. “I don’t want to die. I’ve never even seen a movie. Seventeen years old and I’ve never seen a movie and I still don’t know what math is.” No wonder why J.K. Rowling wanted Hermione to end up with Harry.
Graffiti Lit
When street art and literature combine: on “The Moving, Playful Poetry of the World’s Textual Graffiti Artists,” from Slate.
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