Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Year in Reading alumnus Brian Evenson about his A Collapse of Horses, literary horror, and philosophy.
Reporting from Collapse
Sarah Palin, White Goddess
N+1’s Marco Roth turns in an ambitious and historically nuanced exploration of white grievance in a putatively postracial America. Highly recommended.
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The Flowers of the Caper
You will not want to miss these fragments on writing, publishing, and remaining anonymous by the enigmatic Italian writer Elena Ferrante. This Millions essay by Cora Currier on reading Italy through Ferrante’s work pairs quite nicely.
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The Restoration of “Il Cantilena”
Pietru Caxaro composed “Il Cantilena” in the late 15th century, and his poem is widely considered to be the oldest known literary text in the Maltese language. Recently conservator Theresa Zammit Lupi worked to restore the original manuscript’s paper, binding and cover in order to “bring new life” to the historic work. You can read an approximate English translation of the poem courtesy of Wikipedia.
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Time and Relationships
“When we think of novels, we often think of chunks of time and the action during those periods. But when I think of time, my teenage years particularly, I think of relationships.” Recent Year in Reading alum Darcey Steinke talks with The Rumpus about being a teenage girl, motherlessness, “quiet” books and her new novel, Sister Golden Hair.
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
“I think if a woman is absolutely happy with herself, that goes a long way in getting others to accept her choices. But it’s hard to be absolutely happy with yourself, whoever you are. I mean, what kind of maniac is that?” What kind of maniac are you? This interview with Mary Gaitskill from Guernica Magazine is fantastic.
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You Know AP and Chicago Style. Now learn CIA style.
Among the recommendations and rules listed in the CIA’s official style guide: favor the active voice; keep sentences and paragraphs short; boats should not be referred to with gendered pronouns; and the “w” in “Vietnam war” should be lower case because war wasn’t officially declared.
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Their Own Room
Were you aware there’s a new BBC2 show about the lives of the Bloomsbury Group? There is, and it’s called Life in Squares, a reference to a quote that says the group “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles.” In The New Statesman, Rachel Cooke sits down with the series. You could also read Alexis Coe on Virginia Woolf and Downton Abbey.