I’ve written before about Matthew Jockers‘s claim, as reported and presented by the Paris Review, that there are only about 6 plots in fiction. Now Dan Piepenbring returns to the Review to respond to critics who and attempt to answer the questions “is it really possible to assign every word a reliable emotional valence? And even if the answer is yes, can we really claim that all the plots in the history of literature take so few basic forms?”
Six Plots Part II
Essay Time
Haven’t checked out the cartoon Adventure Time? You’re missing out, says Maria Bustillos. The Awl and New Yorker contributor explains why you need to check out this show in an essay-cum-one-off-website. If it helps, The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum feels the same way. (h/t The Paris Review)
●
●
Confessional Criticism
“Contemporary criticism is positively crowded with first-person pronouns, micro-doses of memoir, brief hits of biography. Critics don’t simply wrestle with their assigned cultural object; they wrestle with themselves, as well. Recent examples suggest a spectrum, from reviews that harmlessly kick off with a personal anecdote, to hybrid pieces that blend literary criticism and longform memoir.” On why critics get personal in their essays.
●
●
DFW a Year Later
David Foster Wallace died a little more than a year ago. It's a good time to revisit Garth's excellent piece written shortly after Wallace's death. More recently, No Pun Intended published a long reflection on Wallace.
●
●
Common Consciousness Changed
"For good or evil, we are a single people: the more we become conscious of this, the less difficult and long will be humanity's progress towards justice and peace." The inimitable Primo Levi on the spiritual value of science and its ability to bring people together.
●
●
The Oldest Joke
This week in book-related graphics: The New Yorker takes a poll and ranks the funniest jokes from the world's oldest joke book, the Philogelos.