August 24, 2021 Redux Redux: Merely a Mask By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Louise Erdrich. This week at The Paris Review, we’re thinking about masks, concealment, and hiding. Read on for Louise Erdrich’s Art of Fiction interview, Charles Baudelaire’s poem “The Mask,” Donald Keene’s essay on Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, and Flavia Gandolfo’s photography portfolio “Masks.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, poems, and works of criticism, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books and read both magazines’ entire archives? Louise Erdrich, The Art of Fiction No. 208 Issue no. 195 (Winter 2010) I suppose one develops a number of personas and hides them away, then they pop up during writing. The exertion of control comes later. I take great pleasure in writing when I get a real voice going and I’m able to follow the voice and the character. It’s like being in a trance state. Read More
August 17, 2021 Redux Redux: Some Instants Are Electric By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Margaret Jull Costa. Photo: © Gary Doak / Alamy Stock Photo. This week at The Paris Review, we’re highlighting women writers and translators from around the world in honor of Women in Translation Month. Read on for Margaret Jull Costa’s Art of Translation interview, Hiromi Kawakami’s short story “Mogera Wogura,” Claribel Alegria’s poem “Summing Up,” and Svetlana Alexievich’s work of nonfiction “Voices from Chernobyl.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, poems, and works of criticism, why not subscribe to both The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books and read both magazines’ entire archives? Margaret Jull Costa, The Art of Translation No. 7 Issue no. 233 (Summer 2020) Translating is writing, and I see no distinction, really, between being a writer and being a translator, apart from the very major distinction that I don’t start with a blank page but immerse myself in another writer’s words and transpose them into my own language. People often ask if I don’t yearn to write my own novels, and I don’t. I don’t have that kind of storytelling imagination. Just as actors don’t all yearn to write plays or musicians to compose symphonies, I enjoy the process of interpretation and performance, of conveying someone else’s words and ideas to a new audience. Not that I’m a neutral voice, that’s not possible, but, if all goes well, I’m the writer’s voice with a different cadence. Read More
August 10, 2021 Redux Redux: It’s All a Question of Language By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Robert Lowell. Drawing by Hans Beck, 1961. This week at The Paris Review, we’re celebrating another year of the best deal in town: our summer subscription offer with The New York Review of Books. For only $99, you’ll receive yearlong subscriptions and complete archive access to both magazines—a 34% savings! To give you a taste, we’re unlocking pieces from the archives of both The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books. Read on for Robert Lowell’s Art of Poetry interview, paired with his letters to Elizabeth Bishop concerning the founding of The New York Review of Books; Ingeborg Bachmann’s short story “Everything,” paired with Merve Emre’s essay on Bachmann’s novel Malina and other fiction; and a portfolio of art by Kara Walker, paired with an essay by Zadie Smith on Walker’s work through the years. If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, poems, and works of criticism, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books and read both magazines’ entire archives? Robert Lowell, The Art of Poetry No. 3 The Paris Review, issue no. 25 (Winter–Spring 1961) The ideal modern form seems to be the novel and certain short stories. Maybe Tolstoy would be the perfect example—his work is imagistic, it deals with all experience, and there seems to be no conflict of the form and content. So one thing is to get into poetry that kind of human richness in rather simple descriptive language. Then there’s another side of poetry: compression, something highly rhythmical and perhaps wrenched into a small space. I’ve always been fascinated by both these things. Read More
August 3, 2021 Redux Redux: The Runner Trying to Disappear By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. The author at his jazz club, Peter Cat, in 1978. This week at The Paris Review, we’re tuning in to the Olympics and thinking about feats of athleticism. Read on for Haruki Murakami’s Art of Fiction interview, Ottessa Moshfegh’s short story “The Weirdos,” Gary Gildner’s poem “The Runner,” and Leanne Shapton and Charlotte Strick’s art portfolio “Swimming Lessons.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. Or, choose our new summer bundle and purchase a year’s worth of The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books for $99 (that’s $50 in savings!). Haruki Murakami, The Art of Fiction No. 182 Issue no. 170 (Summer 2004) INTERVIEWER How is your typical workday structured? MURAKAMI When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity. Read More
July 27, 2021 Redux Redux: Anyothertime, Anyotherplace By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Kenzaburo Oe in 2002. This week at The Paris Review, we’re redrafting, rewriting, and revising. Read on for Kenzaburo Oe’s Art of Fiction interview, Sigrid Nunez’s “The Blind,” Aaron Bulman’s poem “The Revision,” and Lydia Davis’s essay “Revising One Sentence.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. Or, choose our new summer bundle and purchase a year’s worth of The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books for $99 (that’s $50 in savings!). Kenzaburo Oe, The Art of Fiction No. 195 Issue no. 183 (Winter 2007) INTERVIEWER Many writers are obsessive about working in solitude, but the narrators in your books—who are writers—write and read while lying on the couch in the living room. Do you work amid your family? OE I don’t need to be solitary to work. When I am writing novels and reading, I do not need to separate myself or be away from my family. Usually I work in my living room while Hikari listens to music. I can work with Hikari and my wife present because I revise many times. The novel is always incomplete, and I know I will revise it completely. When I’m writing the first draft I don’t have to write it by myself. When I’m revising, I already have a relationship with the text so I don’t have to be alone. I have a study on the second floor, but it’s rare that I work there. The only time I work in there is when I’m finishing up a novel and need to concentrate—which is a nuisance to others. Read More
July 20, 2021 Redux Redux: Mouth Is Boss By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Robert Pinsky. This week at The Paris Review, we’re thinking about mouths and the breath. Read on for Robert Pinsky’s Art of Poetry interview, Shruti Swamy’s short story “A House Is a Body,” and Helena Kaminski’s poem “Face.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. Or, choose our new summer bundle and purchase a year’s worth of The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books for $99 (that’s $50 in savings!). Robert Pinsky, The Art of Poetry No. 76 Issue no. 144 (Fall 1997) In Poetry and the World, I wrote: “Poetry is the most bodily of the arts.” A couple of friends who read it in draft said, Well, Robert, you know … dancing is probably more bodily than poetry. But I stubbornly left the passage that way without quite having worked out why I wanted to say it like that. Sometimes the ideas that mean the most to you will feel true long before you can quite formulate them or justify them. After a while, I realized that for me the medium of poetry is the column of breath rising from the diaphragm to be shaped into meaning sounds inside the mouth. That is, poetry’s medium is the individual chest and throat and mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem—a body, and not necessarily the body of the artist or an expert as in dance. Read More