“His books are not only obviously produced by an obsessive film buff (as evidenced by one wry recurring trick, the dates in brackets that follow even citations of celluloid ephemera), they often seem to want to be movies, as shown by another signature device, the way his protagonists – from the 1890s European spies and 1950s New Yorkers in the interwoven narratives of his debut, V. in 1963, all the way to Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge in 2013 – break anti-naturalistically into song like characters in musicals.” An argument that Thomas Pynchon writes fiction tailor-made for the cinema.
Across the Screen
Move Over, Wittgenstein’s Mistress
Frankly, it’s just pretty hard to beat Raskolnikov’s Inbox.
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The Vollmann Wears Prada
Just in time for the publication of Kissing the Mask, it’s…Wilhelmina T. Vollmann! If this were a TLC album, it would be called Scarysexyapposite. (via)
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The Hand that Feeds Them
Stephen Elliot explains why publishers are shooting themselves in the foot when they gouge authors trying to buy copies of their own books.
#Read4Refugees
Go Jane Give organized the “#Read4Refugees” social media campaign, encouraging users to raise awareness and funds for refugee issues. Over the past month, numerous well-known authors have joined in, including Junot Díaz, Jodi Picoult, Sue Monk Kidd, and Sherman Alexie, among others.
Young Eliot
There’s a new biography of T.S. Eliot out, and this one concentrates on the poet’s American childhood and his transition from a youthful Tom to the now-famous T.S. (just in case you needed some context for that new writer’s retreat.)
Go Buy A Watchman
In the spirit of the relentless consumerism and the commodification of literature, five hundred signed, specially-packed copies of Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman will be retailing for $1,500 each. Did someone say “consumerism“?
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