You may have read our review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel The Buried Giant. You may also have read our own Mark O’Connell’s review at Slate. For another opinion, you could read James Wood, who writes about Ishiguro’s “prose of provoking equilibrium” in the latest New Yorker.
Take Three
What He Said
Those interested in a fuller critique of Reality Hunger than our comments section affords – and a useful set of questions about the purpose of art – should check out Marco Roth‘s sterling essay, “Throwback Throwdown.”
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Moments of Being
In an essay for TriQuarterly Lia Purpura writes about Virginia Woolf‘s “moments of being” and their importance for contemporary writing. “Woolf’s particular flavor of modernism is rooted in the drive to gather, hold, and deepen moments, to make the shimmering moment of perception the base upon which “reality” rests. Her sensibility honors the fleeting, fragile instances of a person’s life.”
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Identifying in the First Person
Jessica Love writes for The American Scholar about some recent psychological studies on the art and perspective of storytelling. Of particular interest is the way “the first person does seem to encourage us to identify with the narrator, especially when that narrator is a lot like us.” Not that identifying with narrators is the primary purpose of reading, as the New Yorker reminds us in a piece against “relatability,” but it’s something to consider the next time you pick up a novel and find a character who seems to be just like you.
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Kindle’s “Public Notes”
Amazon’s “Public Notes” feature kindle.amazon.com isn’t as new as some are saying, but it might be creepier than you think. In other Kindle news, GalleyCat‘s put together a “how-to” guide to copy and pasting text selections from one device to another.
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The Elmore Enigma
Elmore Leonard was a very cinematic writer, yet why are most adaptations of his work so bad? Christopher Orr explores what he calls the “Elmore Leonard paradox” in The Atlantic. “Most of the early adaptations of Leonard’s crime work missed his light authorial touch, opting instead for somber noir.” Pair with: Our own Bill Morris’s essay on why Leonard was such a good writer.
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Don’t Even Ask about the Goggles
Looking to show your fellow beachgoers just how rich and erudite you are? Then mosey on over to the Paris Review Store, where you can buy four pairs of nifty-looking swim trunks that each cost $320.
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Recovering Iris Murdoch
With many of her books no longer in print, Iris Murdoch's posthumous reputation leaves much to be desired, and her ardent fans seek to rectify this.
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Kickstarting The Riveter
That Kickstarter is offering more opportunities than ever to literary projects, from Coffee House Press’s Catstarter to the Joan Didion documentary to the Reading Rainbow spin-off, is indisputable. Now there’s yet another worthy cause turning to the crowd-sourcing platform in search of an audience: The Riveter, a magazine of longform journalism by women.
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