“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.
Recycling
Finding God by the Creek
“The striking thing about her search for God is that she sometimes finds him. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’s second chapter, after a kind of introduction, is titled ‘Seeing.’ There are two kinds, she explains. The common variety is active, where you strain, against the running babble of internal monologue, to pay attention to what’s actually in front of you. But, she tells us, ‘there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go.’ You do not seek, you wait. It isn’t prayer; it is grace. The visions come to you, and they come from out of the blue.” On Annie Dillard’s turn to silence.
●
●
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.”
●
●
Virginia Woolf Gazes Backward
Lauren Groff takes a closer look at Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day, which has a noticeably different tone than her other books.
●
●
●
The Bookstore-Hostel
Love reading and sleeping? Then we’ve found the perfect vacation destination for you: a bookstore and hostel combination in Tokyo, Japan.
●
●
Charles Dickens’s Mistress
All six of the forthcoming films previewed by The Week’s Kerensa Cadenas look outstanding, but of particular relevance to Millions readers is The Invisible Woman. The film, which is an adaptation of Claire Tomalin’s biography of the same name, follows the life of Ellen “Nelly” Ternan (Felicity Jones), an actress who met Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) and became his secret mistress.
●
●
Goodbye Gone Girl
David Fincher had Gillian Flynn rewrite the ending of Gone Girl for his film. Flynn herself relished the changes. “There was something thrilling about taking this piece of work that I’d spent about two years painstakingly putting together with all its 8 million Lego pieces and take a hammer to it and bash it apart and reassemble it into a movie,” she said. What would Amy think?
Keeping Present the Forgotten
Recommended reading: The Believer interviews Claudia Rankine about Citizen: An American Lyric, the relationship between art and literature and the importance of “keeping present the forgotten bodies.”
●
●
Bring your @ game.
Sarah Weinman has compiled a list of verified literary Twitter accounts on her blog.
●
●