Does literature have to be timeless? Over at Electric Literature, Kevin Pickard debates pop culture references in novels. Pair with Bill Morris’s Millions essay on books about the near future.
A Matter of Time
A Nation of Poets
“Mr. Walt Whitman has imagined that a certain amount of violent sympathy with the great deeds and sufferings of our soldiers, and of admiration for our national energy, together with a ready command of picturesque language, are sufficient inspiration for a poet. If this were the case, we had been a nation of poets.” A young Henry James reviews Whitman’s Drum Taps.
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Wimmer on Bolaño
Year in Reading alum Scott Esposito asks fellow Year in Reading alum Natasha Wimmer nine questions about Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich.
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Dead Father
Recommended Reading: Susan Choi on a resurrected stage adaptation of Donald Barthelme’s novel Snow White.
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The Wire as a Victorian Novel
And now for something completely different… The Wire reimagined as a Victorian novel and analyzed in a funny, yet sharp satire piece.
The Cancer of Culture, the Culture of Cancer
Citizen author Claudia Rankine has announced that her next book will be on the culture of cancer. “I’m interested in being in a restaurant and wondering about eating a steak and if it’s hormone-injected and eating it anyway,” she said.
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Global Crises, International Art
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich put together a reading list to help children understand the global refugee experience, and Kaveh Akbar compiled a list of poems from the seven countries — Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria — impacted by President Donald Trump’s executive order. Meanwhile, Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) has been curating a Spotify playlist of music from those countries as well.
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Writing the Self
Laura Bennett writes for Slate about how personal essays are taking over the internet. “I think there is just a very fine line between providing a platform for these writers and exploiting them,” says one editor.
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