At Lit Hub, Lauren Groff discusses the existential issues within her latest novel, Matrix, which explores the life and struggles of Marie de France. “Human attachment is always so sticky and constantly bewildering; we’re longing for the impossible, to be less alone, which even in the closest relationships happens sporadically, not constantly,” Groff says. “It’s also why the hunger for god is so pervasive in human history, and why some of us choose—why I have chosen—to spend life writing and reading. Literature is folding another consciousness into our own, letting it overwhelm our own, so that we briefly become plural, bigger than that first small and singular self.”
Lauren Groff Ponders the Bewilderment of Human Attachment
The Secret Life of Books
“They might underline a page number, draw a little star on the last page, or write their first initial somewhere in the book.” A librarian in Scotland discovered a secret code used by elderly patrons to track which books they already read. From our archives: an essay on the importance of libraries and how they can stay relevant.
Cool For Us
Eileen Myles, the poet and self-described “loudmouthed lesbian (which means mainstream invisible)” has given One Grand Books a list of her ten favorite books from the Djuna Barnes classic Nightwood to John Wieners’s Supplication: Selected Poems. Here’s a complementary Millions essay on Eileen Myles and the fugitive form.
Finished or Completed?
Recommended Reading: This long look at “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible,” an exhibition at Metropolitan Museum of Art which explores the difference between completing and finishing an artwork.
Coetzee Archive to the Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas made headlines when it acquired the David Foster Wallace archives. Now it’s added another high profile author to its collection: J. M. Coetzee.
“Binders Full of Women”
Mitt Romney’s debate remark about where he finds women when he needs to fill some jobs has inspired hundreds of witty product reviewers on Amazon.
The Author Is Not the Author
Recommended Reading: Albert Mobilio on Paul La Farge’s new novel, The Night Ocean.
This Old House
It’s been another long week. Lighten the crush of news with The Guardian‘s literary quiz, in which you match the house to the writer/book it inspired. And once you’ve gotten your score, perhaps take a vicarious tour of the House of Brontë?