In the Edges of the Maps: David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks
There is a moment where Mitchell reaches right into your chest, puts his fingers on your heart, and presses down.
●
●
●
The Books We Come Back To
It shows adulthood and devotedness, I think, to try and get back to a book you love, every four seasons or so. So which books do you all reread yearly, or biannually, or quadrennially, or decennially, and why?
●
●
●
Even David Foster Wallace Nods
Where Wallace probably went wrong was in confusing the Greek nomos, meaning “law,” with onoma, meaning “name.”
●
●
●
Special Effects: Gone with the Wind and Genre Difficulties
If the takeaway from this essay is that Gone with the Wind lacks the status of an epic romance -- that it is, in fact, nothing but a love story with two rather bratty protagonists -- my wife is not going to be happy with me.
●
●
●
Of Fracking and Franzen: Is Strong Motion Coming True in Oklahoma?
I cannot imagine the circumstances under which I would discover that my actions had caused an earthquake. But I think if I did, my next move would probably be to stop doing whatever it was I was doing -- not to figure out a way to live with the earthquakes. Because if energy companies actually believe that fracking causes earthquakes -- and if they continue to frack -- where does it end? If a company learned that fracking was responsible for international terrorism, would they stop? If they learned that fracking caused blindness in little orphan baby girls, would they care?
●
●
●
‘There It Is’: Vietnam and the Generosities of Fiction
If there were no such thing as fiction, we’d have had to invent it, if we ever wanted to make sense out of a thing like the Vietnam War.
●
●
●