Recommended Reading: Enrique Vila-Matas on rock ‘n’ roll, anti-artists, and the central motor of his work.
Dead Ends
Partying with Houellebecq
Nelly Kaprielian parties with Michel Houellebecq after he wins the Goncourt: “‘After France, the world!’ jokes Beigbeder, and everybody’s quick to raise a glass.”
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She Totally Did
“‘I can hold my own in the bedroom and the boardroom,’ she said to no one, and to everyone. ‘You should never underestimate me.’ She took off her blonde ponytail and shook her hair loose; there was another blonde ponytail underneath it.” There’s no better time than now to revisit Mallory Ortberg’s classic, unbelievably funny piece “A Day in the Life of an Empowered Female Heroine” from The Toast.
What’s Lost
We tend to take it for granted that the world needs more translated works. The dictates of common wisdom state that reading translated works help us understand the reality of foreign cultures. But what if translation, which erases at least some nuance from works of literature, instead “sifts out the foreign or the unsettling in the name of easy consumption”? In The Irish Times, Michael Cronin reviews a recent book by NYU professor Emily Apter.
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My Dear Antlers
Ladette Randolph began the Writers and their Pets series on the Ploughshares blog in large part to celebrate her beloved dog Sally. It didn’t take long, however, for the series to expand, which eventually led to this week’s entry about Nina Mukerjee Furstenau’s pet elk.
Those Brits and Their Book Awards
Phillip Roth wins the Man Booker International prize (a lifetime achievement award that’s a recent invention) and one of the judges steps down in protest. “I don’t rate him as a writer at all.”
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