At the Creative Independent, Lauren Oyler discusses how writing literary criticism helped her define the intentional, dynamic style she wanted in her own fiction. “I think writing criticism helped me be very intentional with everything that I was putting in,” Oyler says. “Everything I put in is there for a reason, even if the reason is just ‘this is funny.’ I’m not making sure every sentence is a perfect diamond because I don’t think that that’s possible. I wanted the book to feel alive and energetic, like something that sometimes has made rather than produced in a factory.”
Shifting from Criticism to Fiction with Lauren Oyler
Just Like Christmas
Good news for Catch-22 fans: a previously unpublished Joseph Heller story appears in the newest issue of Strand Magazine. (h/t Paris Review)
Trystero Coffee
At Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellogg has coffee with Thomas Pynchon–well, not exactly…
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All That
Last week, I pointed readers to a speech by the late James Salter, reprinted by The Paris Review Daily in tribute to the writer after his death. For a fan appreciation, you can read Kevin Lincoln in Hazlitt, who leads his piece with the observation that Salter “wrote sentences you could unfold into paper lanterns.” Pair with our own Sonya Chung’s review of Salter’s All That Is.
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Su Hui’s Masterpiece Palindrome
Chinese poet Su Hui composed an 841-character array in the fourth century that can be read forward, backward, horizontally, diagonally, and vertically. The poem, entitled “Xuanji Tu,” can be read in 2,848 different ways as a result.
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“Ah the world, oh the whale!”
“Ah the world, oh the whale!” At The Washington Times, my review of Philip Hoare’s wonderful new anatomy of all things cetacean, The Whale, winner of the prestigious Samuel Johnson nonfiction prize. (ECW)
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From Terror to Terrific
“Crossover words are a tremendous testament to our awesome ability to shape the language as we use it. To master our fears. To take our terror and use it to build something terrific.” – Arika Okrent writes for The Week about irony, slang and the way language changes.
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