“She didn’t even want to be anything. She just wanted to be able to sit in a room and not feel tortured by it, which is sort of the human condition in general. Eileen isn’t dreaming of leaving home and making it in the big city on Broadway. She just wants to go and eat a banana, you know?” Ottessa Moshfegh on her new novel, Eileen, for The Rumpus.
Do I Dare to Eat a Banana?
What’s Wrong with Books?
Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman explain what’s wrong with books: “They’re heavy…the shit in them is dumb…”
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The Grand Neglect
The story behind Le Grand Meaulnes, the neglected French classic that was beloved by Henry Miller, name-dropped by Jack Kerouac, and a potential inspiration for the title of The Great Gatsby.
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England’s Green and Pleasant Land
William Blake may have described its “green and pleasant land” but this week England had traded green for white, as you can see in this NASA photograph (c/o Gizmodo).
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Literary Generators
Good: The William Shakespeare Insult Generator. Better: The Martin Luther Insult Generator. Best: The P.G. Wodehouse Quote Generator.
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Telegram for You, Sir
Daniel Woodrell was so busy dodging bill collectors that he almost missed a telegram from an agent interested in his first novel, Under the Bright Lights. He discusses his writing career, the film adaptation of Winter’s Bone, and how he’s used the same coffee mug since 1974 for The Daily Beast’s “How I Write” series.
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The Humanity
I’ve written before about the ouroboric development of book reviewers reviewing book reviews. In The Spectator, Sam Leith uses a new book by David Lodge as a reason to ask: where will it all end?
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