“For Groff, it is not that there’s a clearly delineated line between the universal and the particular, but rather that they are nested like Russian dolls: every story of the particular is also an iteration of the universal.” This review of Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies from 3:AM Magazine is great. Our interview with Groff from a few weeks ago makes a nice complementary read.
Near-Mythical Depictions
The real Daisy Buchanan
"The poor boy losing the rich girl is a common theme in Fitzgerald’s work, and the original model was surely his relationship with Ginerva King." AKA the real Daisy Buchanan, who, might I note, looks nothing at all like Carey Mulligan.
The Giant of Myth
The late David Rakoff was a longtime Salon contributor, and to celebrate his memory, the site published an excerpt of his rhyming novel, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, which came out today.
Jason Epstein on How Publishing Works
"Far more than any other medium, books contain civilizations, the ongoing conversation between present and past. Without this conversation we are lost. But books are also a business...." Jason Epstein explains how publishing works—and why, increasingly, it doesn’t, at the New York Review of Books. (via)
True Writing
“Baldwin understood that if you are going to say something important about the world it is best if you try to say it beautifully. I don’t mean like picking flowers or writing on fancy stationery. I mean how you say it actually makes it a more meaningful piece of writing. I am going to push that further. It makes it a truer piece of writing. What you are saying is: ‘Can I make somebody feel this in a deeper way?’ That was what I was obsessed with.” Over at The Guardian, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about the success of Between the World and Me and being inspired by his father. Pair with our own Sonya Chung’s essay on David Brooks and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
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Benefits Does Have a Nicer Ring to It
In its treatment of the poor, Britain may be “going back to the Middle Ages,” says Booker repeat winner Hilary Mantel. Indeed, she explains, “In some respects … Cromwell lived in a more enlightened time.” And she’s not the only high profile UK author to come to the side of government welfare these days. In a two-part interview for The Daily Show, J.K. Rowling notes that she couldn’t have written her first books without government “benefits.”
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Made with Care
A while ago, I pointed readers to Charles Yu’s review of Buffalo Wild Wings, published as part of the series Novelists in Restaurants Eating Food. Now, on the other side of the tacky-bourgeois spectrum, Amelia Gray reviews Tsujita LA Artisan Noodle. Sample quote: “While I’m at home, or at work, reading or staring into space, it’s good to know that somewhere, a soup is doing the work of becoming more delicious.”
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