David Kurnick explores what makes Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels so addictive. As he puts it, “In Ferrante we see what grand novelistic ambition looks like devoid of writerly vanity.” Pair with Cora Currier’s essay on reading Italy through Ferrante’s books.
Novelistic Ambitions
After the Storm
Ten years after hurricane Katrina, Fatima Shaik reflects on freedom of expression, gentrification, and the state of education in New Orleans. You could also check out Gary Rivlin’s Katrina: After the Flood, featured in our 2015 nonfiction preview.
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Hard Choices
Recommended Listening: David Sedaris presented three short stories while guest hosting WNYC’s Selected Shorts. The three stories were written by Amy Hempel, Tobias Wolff, and Frank Gannon, and each one has to do with “hard choices,” says Sedaris.
Henry Miller: Asleep and Awake
The documentary about Tropic of Cancer author Henry Miller, Asleep and Awake (NSFW), was filmed almost entirely in Mr. Miller’s bathroom. The filmmakers, according to the folks at Open Culture, “use[d] these bathroom walls as a gateway into his mind.”
Dear Diary
This week in Bookends: in which Thomas Mallon and Pankaj Mishra muse on which writer’s journals are really worth reading. Here’s a bonus Millions piece on Bookends for all those New York Times devotees.
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Kafka in Myanmar
“On my manhood rests a tattooed / portrait of Mr. President. / My beloved found that out after we wed. / She was utterly gutted, / Inconsolable.” Poet Maung Saungkha may have to prove in a Myanmar courtroom that he doesn’t have a tattoo of the nation’s president on his genitals.
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