Jane Austen is probably mad at us. Amy Watkin tells us why at McSweeney’s.
Jane Austen’s Wrath
“The chorus needs to be real to make this work.”
Millions staffer Edan Lepucki contributed “Chorus” to Slate‘s Trump Story Project, an ongoing series of short fiction pieces written by contemporary authors.
The man Lish fought for
It was the height of the feminist revolution and one man was trying, unsuccessfully, to publish a book about a man amidst a midlife crisis. 25 years later, Esquire editor Gordon Lish read sections of An Armful of Warm Girl in a literary magazine and demanded that Knopf reconsider publishing it (they did). This week over at Bloom, Nicki Leone dives into the work of W.M. Spackman, the man often referred to as “Fitzgerald‘s literary heir.”
Literary Critic Sir Frank Kermode Dies at 90
Sir Frank Kermode, widely acclaimed as Britain’s foremost literary critic, died yesterday in Cambridge at the age of 90. Guardian recalls highlights of his eminent career, including inspiring the founding of The London Review of Books, publishing books ranging from works on Spenser and Donne to last year’s Concerning EM Forster, and being an acclaimed reviewer: Philip Roth admitted that although he dislikes reading reviews, “if Frank Kermode reviewed my book I would read it.”
Language, the Savior
At The Guardian, Jhumpa Lahiri recounts the path that led her to write her latest book in Italian, one of the most anticipated books of 2016. As she puts it, “A week after arriving [in Rome], I open my diary to describe our misadventures and I do something strange, unexpected. I write my diary in Italian. I do it almost automatically, spontaneously. I do it because when I take the pen in my hand I no longer hear English in my brain. During this period when everything confuses me, everything unsettles me, I change the language I write in.”
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From Lincoln to Napoleon
Steven Spielberg is working with Stanley Kubrick’s family to adapt a long-abandoned biopic screenplay about “the life of Napoleon” for a TV miniseries. Spielberg last adapted work from the late filmmaker in 2001’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.
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Acts of gruesomely violent chivalry and vehicular aggression.
Yet another entry for the list of all time greatest single-purpose tumblrs: Witless Innuendo, bringing you “a collection of those end-of-review warnings from The New York Times‘ film critics.”
In the Dark (of Space)
Originally, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey included more narration by co-writer Arthur C. Clarke, whose short story “The Sentinel” was the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s script. At the last minute, Kubrick decided to cut them out, which led to Clarke leaving the US premiere halfway through. In a piece for The New Statesman an old friend of Clarke’s explores his side of the story. You could also read Ted Gioia on a weirdly predictive ’60s sci-fi novel.
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