“May God give me the courage to finish it:” The London Review of Books profiles one woman’s attempt to translate Finnegans Wake into Mandarin Chinese.
A Chinese Finnegan
Summer Belongs To Someone Else
Recommended Reading: This story by John Patrick McHugh at Granta Magazine. Do yourself a favor and check out this one while you’re at it.
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Thursday Links
An illustration of why Cliffs Notes are never a substitute for the real thing.The Britannica Blog looks at “fun facts” about the 1,000 most popularly held books in libraries around the world, including this item: “Which author has the most works on the OCLC Top 1000 list? William Shakespeare (with 37 works). He is followed by Charles Dickens (16 works) and John Grisham (13 works).” Here’s the full list where The Bible comes in at #1, the Census at #2, and Mother Goose at #3 (in 2,036 different versions and editions.) (via)Powell’s is making a series of short documentaries about writers that will supplement and stand in for book tours. From the New York Times: “The British author Ian McEwan is the star of the first film, which is planned to run 23 minutes and will feature snippets from an on-camera interview with Mr. McEwan, as well as commentary from peers, fans and critics.” The film is being put out to coincide with the release of his new novel, On Chesil Beach. (via)
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Interview with Lisa See
Recommended listening: The Los Angeles Review of Books interviews author Lisa See.
Bright Indeed
Jane Campion‘s Bright Star was released in theaters today. Read the New York Times‘ favorable review and watch a clip of Campion’s take on the romance between Romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). According to papers on both coasts, it is Cornish who shines brightest: the NYT applauds her “mesmerizing vitality and heart-stopping grace.” You may recognize Whishaw as the demented/gifted perfumier Jean-Baptiste Grenouille from Tom Tykwer‘s adaptation of Patrick Suskind‘s 2001 novel Perfume: The Story of a Murder.
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A state of shock.
When a professor of literature wrote Flannery O’Connor for a master key for interpreting her story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” he probably did not expect her particularly unimpressed reply: “Too much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it.” (Via the ever-excellent Letters of Note.)
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Matters of Public Safety
Last week, Kyle Boelte reviewed On Immunity by Eula Biss, delving into its lengthy history of inoculation and public health. At the Harper’s blog, Jeffery Gleaves talks with Biss as part of their Six Questions feature, asking her about Susan Sontag, public versus private danger and the relationship between capitalism and anti-vaccination sentiment.