October 15, 2013 On the Shelf Scandal at the Bookers, and Other News By Sadie Stein Behind the scenes at the Booker Prize! The lurid image is not misleading. We are not inclined to argue with the authority of this headline: “Here Is the One Perfect Book for Every Single Myers-Briggs Type.” “Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading.” Neil Gaiman on letting children read what they want. Crowdsourcing Tolstoy. “I don’t know what to make of it really. I’m a bit of an unlikely sex symbol. The mothers have all been coming up to me at the school gates taking the mickey out of me.” The teacher who inspired Helen Fielding’s latest romantic hero.
October 14, 2013 Quote Unquote On Twaddle By Sadie Stein “I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.” ―Katherine Mansfield
October 14, 2013 Arts & Culture Recapping Dante: Canto 2 By Alexander Aciman William Blake, Dante and Virgil Penetrating the Forest (1824-7) This fall, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! It’s called a remix. That’s how this segment begins. It’s a living pastiche, a breathing exercise in allusion and homage. Every scholar seems to agree that the opening lines of this canto are Virgilian, but none know exactly which passage Dante is imitating. And that’s probably because Dante isn’t imitating a particular passage, but is simply borrowing his style; it’s Virgil re-invented—Virgil’s flow, but freestyle and on the fly, and in a completely different language. The simple fact that Dante can invoke Virgil so effortlessly not only points to a certain aptitude for getting into Virgil’s bones, but even suggests that Dante knows Virgil’s poetry better than Virgil probably knew it himself. This canto is all about due diligence. Dante uses it to make sure that any leftover confusion from the first is settled. Virgil still has a lot of explaining to do, and so while nothing really happens to advance the story, it’s an important episode for the benefit of the story. We learn about Dante’s apprehensions about going through Hell (Won’t it be really, really scary? Will there be monsters?), and we are explained what the hell exactly Virgil (who died basically like a bajillion years before this story is set) is doing in the same forest as Dante. In this passage, you also get a crash course in Aeneas’s family tree, and realize that if you’ve ever read Joyce before Dante, you were very unprepared. Read More
October 11, 2013 At Work On Mirth, Milton, and Nostalgia: A Conversation with Mark Morris By J. Mae Barizo Twenty-five years ago, Mark Morris created L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, a vibrant, enthralling choreography inspired by the music of George Frederic Handel and the poems of John Milton. The New York Times hailed L’Allegro as “a glorious outpouring of dance invention and humanistic imagery,” and Joan Acocella stated that it is “widely considered one of the great dance works of the twentieth century.” Morris may indeed be the most talked-about modern dance choreographer of his generation, and he has a personality to match his renown. He didn’t so much appear for our interview as arrive, bursting into the room in red socks and his trademark scarf, thrown insouciantly over his shoulder. A natural performer, Morris communicates with enthusiasm and urgency; his hands sliced through the air dramatically as he spoke. Our conversation was punctuated by his impish laugh and his opinions on everything from Lydia Davis, country western music, his figurine collection, and his choice of vodka. Morris is a voracious reader, and during the course of the interview in his New York apartment, he repeatedly pulled books from his shelves. What’s the last great book you read? You know what’s not great but fabulous is this book of love notes between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. It’s called Baby Precious Always Shines. And I just read this Mary Renault–style gay potboiler called The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller. I have to say I was so thrilled that Lydia Davis won the Man Booker International Prize, because I was plugging her book to everyone I met. When I read her Collected Stories, I lost my mind. Those two-sentence stories really fucked me up. I think she’s a genius. Is there any type of literature you steer clear of? Boringness! Actually no, I have a tolerance for boringness. If it’s John Grisham I’m not going to read it. I’m not a big best-seller type, but I did read all of those terrifying, evangelical Christian books, the Left Behind series. Read More
October 11, 2013 Quote Unquote Happy Birthday, Elmore By Sadie Stein “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” ―Elmore Leonard
October 11, 2013 This Week’s Reading What We’re Loving: Dickinson, Waltz, Lupines By The Paris Review I’ve been marveling over The Gorgeous Nothings, a coffee table–size book with (gorgeous) color facsimiles of Emily Dickinson’s “envelope writings”—fifty-two poems and fragments written to fit on the backs and flaps of carefully folded envelopes. Marta Werner and Jen Bervin, who edited the book, also provide transcriptions that reflect the actual position of the poems on the page (many are written diagonally, or in columns, or upside down). In her informative afterword, Werner suggests the fragments belong to Dickinson’s “late ecstatic writings.” And there is something inaccessible yet buoyant about these pieces of poetry, written on scraps that often look like the wings of paper birds. —Robyn Creswell This past weekend, I visited a three-year-old friend (and her parents). I brought her one of my favorite children’s books, Barbara Cooney’s Miss Rumphius. The 1983 National Book Award winner is beautiful, certainly, but just as striking is its story, about an independent woman dedicated to bringing beauty to the world. It’s a classic, for sure, but more importantly, a total delight. —Sadie Stein Read More