August 17, 2017 Ask The Paris Review Cassandras at Weddings, and Other Questions By Lorin Stein Have a question for the editors of The Paris Review? Email us. Dear Paris Review, I’m the only child of a single mom, who’s obviously been my best friend from the start. But here’s the thing: after twenty-six years, she recently remarried—okay, it’s been two years since—but I’m still “adjusting.” I read Cassandra at the Wedding around the time my mom got hitched, and it was exactly what I needed. Could you recommend a few more of those sorts of novels … to see me through? Ones with kids wrestling with their parents’ love lives or ones about mothers and daughters (nothing too cheesy, please), or—well, you get the gist. Love, A Mama’s Girl Dear Girl, Off the top of my head, first I think of Mona Simpson’s Anywhere but Here (1986), about a girl growing up as the confidante and caretaker of her reckless, volatile, romantic (and more than slightly crazy) single mother. Simpson published a chapter with the Review. You can read it here. Second, I think of Annie John, by Jamaica Kincaid—about a girl’s painful individuation from the mother she adores. Third, I think of Swann’s Way: it’s not mother-daughter, but it is a novel—about love and sex and art and everything else—that begins with the pain of having to share one’s mother. And my colleague Julia Berick—who came to the Review by way of our neighborhood bookstore, 192 Books—recommends How to Be Both, by Ali Smith, in which the grown heroine has to face up to her mother’s extramarital crush. She adds one more: “Agostino, by Alberto Moravia, is a tiny, perfect sketch of the birth and death of a boy’s comprehension of his mother’s sexuality. As soon as he realizes, its existence it is lost to him. But, in seeing his mother’s sexual adulthood, he begins to approach his own. (And, of course, it’s Italian.)” Read More
August 3, 2017 Ask The Paris Review Help! My Friend Is a Vaper, and Other Questions By Lorin Stein Dear Paris Review, I’m suspicious of memoirs. I don’t think people remember things as well as the genre suggests they do, and life doesn’t play out so neatly. I love Vivian Gornick’s writing partly because her memoirs work according to different rules, but she seems to be doing something pretty unique. Are there others like her? Sincerely, Memoirphobic Dear Phobic, Or should I say, Dear Telepathic—I was just about to recommend Vivian Gornick to another advice seeker. (See below!) Nobody writes like her, but if you want to read an autobiography where the remembering sounds believable, try Pack My Bag, by Henry Green. I wouldn’t take it as fact, I would never trust a memoir in matters of fact: as you say, most people don’t remember things very exactly. And then, of course, writers often have good reasons to lie … Read More
July 20, 2017 Ask The Paris Review best audiobook eva? and Other Questions By Lorin Stein Dear Paris Review, When I suggest he read something, my dad always says, I’m waiting for the movie to come out, just to rankle me. I’ve been meaning to send him a stack of films that are truly good adaptations. What should I send? Sincerely, A Rankled Amateur Dear Rankled, It may not be your father’s speed, but you should definitely check out Gabrielle, Patrice Chéreau’s 2005 adaptation of The Return, by Joseph Conrad. It stars Isabelle Huppert as the adulterous wife of a newspaper publisher in fin de siècle Paris. It got a César for best costumes. The sets are terrific. There’s one shot of a bathroom, and that’s all I remember—the bathroom, a normal bathroom, very much like the bathroom in the house where I grew up, which I had never seen until then as an historical artifact. It was that kind of film. It made you feel the past as presence. More obviously, there are Rebecca and Don’t Look Now, two adaptations so perfect that you might think Daphne du Maurier’s books just adapted themselves—until, that is, you see either version of My Cousin Rachel: the 1952 adaptation starring Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton (as what has to be the least believable male virgin in the history of nonpornographic cinema) or the 2017 remake starring Rachel Weisz (and really only Rachel Weisz). In this new version, the ending has been rewritten so it doesn’t make any sense, and for some reason, even though the story’s set two hundred years ago, the men keep going around without their cravats—as if they’d just got off the magic airplane to Cornwall from LAX—and everyone seems to have been infected with a twenty-first-century case of potty mouth. It’s odd enough to hear the aged butler yell at some local yeomen about the “fucking holly,” while they’re trying to deck the ancestral hall—but when a little girl mouths the word bitch at Rachel Weisz, in church no less, I reach for the soap. Read More
September 13, 2013 Ask The Paris Review Should I Get an MFA? And Other Questions from Our AMA By Sadie Stein Earlier this week, we hosted an AMA on Reddit: all the editors clustered around Lorin’s desk, while Stephen typed, and we addressed as many queries as we could. It was fun, and exhausting, and we were delighted and impressed with the caliber of questions! Since there were a number of points that came up repeatedly, below, we are reprinting some of the most frequently-asked questions from that session. Do you believe that the popularity of creative writing degree programs, both graduate and undergraduate, is impacting contemporary literature positively or negatively? … As a student and writer currently debating whether to pursue the MFA route, or go on to graduate school in my chosen field of study, I would be extremely interested in your views on the matter. The problem with creative-writing programs is not the quality of instruction; it’s the enforced isolation with other people who are thinking, eating, and breathing the same things you are. That said, much can be learned from a good teacher, or by simply spending those two years alone with a whole lot of books. As a publishing/journalism industry hopeful, I’m curious about your career trajectories. How did you get where you are now? What were your entry-level jobs? “Clare and I are both former (Paris Review) interns. That was our entry-level job.” —Stephen “My first job? I was an editorial assistant at a publishing house.” —Sadie “I was a part-time secretary at Publishers Weekly.” —Lorin “Advertising.” —Justin “This is my entry-level job.” —Hailey How does the public’s taste in poetry differ now than it twenty years ago? The Paris Review had an article recently stating that there are now “an insufficiency of readers but too many people trying to get published”—how is The Paris Review combating this? Lastly, what are your pet peeves in submissions you get? For example, I work at a journal as well and my “pet peeve” is poems about pieces of obscure artwork that cannot stand alone. The best way to interest people in reading is to publish great writing. At least, that’s our strategy. Fashions change in poetry as in any other artistic endeavor; if there’s one generalization to be made, it’s that it’s harder to generalize now about truly gifted poets. Pet peeves: stories about hunting, stories about MFA programs (though we’ve published our share), stories that start with someone closing a car door. Read More
September 21, 2012 Ask The Paris Review Life-Affirming Reads By Sadie Stein Dear Paris Review, I am currently suffering from a major depression, which has caused me to lose my job and my relationship. I see a therapist and a psychiatrist, and I believe and hope I’m beginning to recover. I have been a major reader all my life, but the depression has made it difficult for me to concentrate, so I haven’t been able to read much lately. I’ve been reading bits and pieces of books I’ve read before many times (Darkness Visible, Diving Into the Wreck), trying to get something from them. I suppose I’m looking for two different types of book as I recover: books that will show me why to live and how, and books that will allow me to escape my present torture. Both need to be pretty easy to follow—for instance, I recently bought The Myth of Sisyphus after reading William Styron’s reference too it, but it’s too difficult for my slow brain right now. Thank you. Dear friend, I’ve been where you are and know exactly the state you describe: one of the many distressing aspects of depression is the inability to lose yourself—and for those of us who have always found comfort in books, this is particularly scary. It goes without saying that everyone’s recovery process is different, and without a sense of your exact tastes—although it is clear you are an ambitious and curious reader with wide-ranging interests—it is a little tricky to suggest comfort reads. (After all, that is so bound up with one’s history and associations, no?) But I can tell you what has worked for me, and for some people I know, and hope that the suggestions, and the knowledge that you are in good company, will prove helpful. Read More
August 31, 2012 Ask The Paris Review John Jeremiah Sullivan Answers Your Questions By John Jeremiah Sullivan This week, our Southern editor, John Jeremiah Sullivan, stepped in to address your queries. Dear Paris Review, I live in the deep south and was raised in a religious cult. Still with me? Okay. I’m attempting to throw off the shackles of my religious upbringing and become an intelligent well-informed adult. My primary source of rebellion thus far has been movies. I would watch a Fellini movie and then feel suddenly superior to my friends and family because they only watched movies in their native tongue (trust me I know how pathetic this is). My main question involves my reading selections. Obviously, I have stumbled upon your publication and am aware of its status as the primary literary periodical in English. Also, I have a brand-new subscription to the New York Review of Books, since it is apparently the intellectual center of the English-speaking universe. I am not in an M.F.A. program or living in Brooklyn working on the Great American Kindle Single, I’m just a working-class guy trying to take part in the conversation that all the smart people are having. This brings me to my question: What books should I read? There are so many books out there worth reading, that I literally don’t know where to start. To give you some background info: I was not raised as a reader and was not taught any literature in the Christian high school that I attended. What kinds of books do I like? My answer to that would be movies. I’m desperate to start some kind of grand reading plan that will educate me about the world but don’t know where to start. The classics? Which ones? Modern stuff? Should I alternate one classic with one recent book? How much should I read fiction? How much should I read nonfiction? I went to college but it was for nursing, so I have never been taught anything about reading by anybody. I realize this stuff may be outside of your comfort zone, as most of the advice questions seem to be from aspiring writers or college-educated people. Please believe me when I say that I am out of touch with the modern world because of a very specific religious cult. I want to be an educated, well-read, cultured, critically thinking person but need some stuff to read. Before I end this letter, I’ll provide an example of just how out of touch I am: you know how “Ms.” is the non-sexist way to refer to a woman, and that “Mrs.” is sexist? Yeah, I just found out about that. I’m twenty-five. Read More