Recommended Reading: On translating the literature of smaller European nations.
The Other Side of Europe
Help Her, Miss Manners
In the pages of the Washington Post, the venerable Miss Manners responds to an English department secretary who feels “besieged by fringe ‘academics’ who are very adamant that we are part of a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was Shakespeare.”
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“No writer needs to be all the writers all the time”
Zadie Smith in conversation with Édouard Louis for the Document Journal. "Listening to the novelists Édouard Louis and Zadie Smith in conversation inspires a kind of hushed glee, a bliss familiar to eavesdroppers who encounter sublime discourse. " How can you resist?
The So-Called Elite
n+1 provides a fascinating study of today's divisive concept of cultural elitism: "Today, though, it’s the bearers of culture rather than the wielders of power who are taxed with elitism. If the term is applied to powerful people, this is strictly for cultural reasons, as the different reputations of the identically powerful Obama and Bush attest. No one would think to call a foul-mouthed four-star general an elitist, even though he commands an army, any more than the term would cover a private equity titan who hires Rod Stewart to serenade his 60th birthday party."
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No More McNuggets
Back in 2011, our founder C. Max Magee pointed to the fan art of Chris Ayers, who was inspired by DFW's Infinite Jest. Now, Ayers has a new series, drawn from Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam trilogy, that illustrates the corporate horrors of the trilogy's fictional dystopia. Pair with Vanessa Blakeslee on Atwood's In Other Worlds.
Hunter S. Thompson’s Job Application
From Hunter S. Thompson's 1958 job application to the Vancouver Sun: “And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you. I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham.”
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