“All of a sudden, things that should be banal, like a person’s face—the fact that a person has a face—becomes extremely disorienting. In these moments, I think it’s important to keep those strange commas.” In an illuminating interview for Asymptote, Year in Reading alumna Katrina Dodson talks about the thrills and challenges in translating The Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector. Pair with Magdalena Edwards’s Millions review of the collection.
The Via Crucis of the Book
A Tipping Point for Gladwell Haters?
The Nation expends about 7,500 words to say Malcolm Gladwell is a hack. The source of the umbrage: “a cheerful, conversational voice deployed in a perfectly paced dopamine prose that had the palliative effect of nullifying whatever concerns readers might have about this product or that problem.”
Recycling
“You could call Zero K a grand summation of DeLillo’s career themes and prose stylings. You could also call it recycling.” Tony Tulathimutte reviews Don DeLillo’s “techno-prophetic novel,” Zero K. To revisit DeLillo’s prior work, check out David Rice’s review of The Angel Esmeralda.
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In the Thick of It
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“Dear Son.”
Recommended Viewing: “The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter,” which is a Scott Wenner film based on a poem by Mark Strand.
Dispatch from the Phillipines
Over at The New York Times Magazine, Katrina Tan finds a creative community in Manila. Pair with this Millions essay on creating a DIY literary scene.
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Reporting from Collapse
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Year in Reading alumnus Brian Evenson about his A Collapse of Horses, literary horror, and philosophy.
Your Lowest Depths of Misery?
“In 1865, Karl Marx confessed that he considered his chief characteristic ‘singleness of purpose,’ and that his favorite occupation was ‘bookworming.’ Five years later, Oscar Wilde wrote in an album called ‘Mental Photographs, an Album for Confessions of Tastes, Habits, and Convictions’ that his distinguishing feature was ‘inordinate self-esteem.'” Over at The New Yorker, take a look at how Marcel Proust’s questionnaires inspired a generation of question-by-by-question introspection.
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