Sanitize and Simplify
On the Limitations of Language
Over at The Point, Spencer McAvoy writes about the language and vision of Joy Williams, a writer who “instead of drawing boundaries between us and whatever Other, posits language as an experience of self-limitedness.” Williams’s new collection of short stories, The Visiting Privilege, is one of the most anticipated books of 2015.
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The New VC
In Wayde Compton’s The Outer Harbour, a series of short stories take the reader from the present day to 2025, exploring a near-future Vancouver in which things grow steadily more surreal. As Emily Oppenheimer writes, it’s clearly a work of speculative fiction, yet the setting resembles our own world in uncanny ways. Sample quote: “Compton achieves the more troubling, yet ultimately more satisfying, goal of portraying the fantastical as something that is very much rooted in what we think we already know about ourselves and our world.”
The Great Millenial Novelist
Madeleine Schwartz examines the works of Sally Rooney, who was recently crowned "the great millennial novelist," by many critics.
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Bring Up the Dianas
“I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not?” Hilary Mantel considers the royal family.
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John Berger, In Memoriam
The British critic, essayist, and novelist John Berger died yesterday at his home in France, reports The New York Times. Probably best known for his book of art-criticism-as-philosophy Ways of Seeing, which was turned into a popular BBC series and sold more than a million copies, Berger also won the Booker prize for G. in 1972 and was nominated again in 2008 for an epistolary novel, From A to X. The Guardian has rounded up some of his quotes, including the apt-feeling “[h]ope is not a form of guarantee; it’s a form of energy, and very frequently that energy is strongest in circumstances that are very dark.”
Marr Resigns
Politico reporter Kendra Marr was forced to resign her position this week after New York Times writer Susan Stellin alerted Marr’s editors to similarities between her transportation policy story published Sept. 26 and Marr’s story published Oct. 10. An investigation by Politico into Marr’s work found seven instances of likely plagiarism. Regret the Error points out that Politico should call Marr’s stories what they are: serious plagiarism.
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Who is Sham Blanderson?
“Sham Blanderson,” presumably the book critic for Moo Pork Magazine, is posting the best sentence he reads each day on Twitter.
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