{"id":146263,"date":"2020-07-21T13:00:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=146263"},"modified":"2020-07-20T17:58:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T21:58:31","slug":"redux-marks-of-feathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/07\/21\/redux-marks-of-feathers\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Marks of Feathers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Chinua Achebe.<\/p><\/div>\n

This week at The Paris Review<\/em>, we\u2019re scribbling, scratching, and reading about manuscripts and notes. Read on for Chinua Achebe\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, Umberto Eco\u2019s short story \u201cThe Bible<\/a>,\u201d and selections<\/a> from Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s notebooks.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>? Or, better yet, subscribe to\u00a0our special summer offer<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0The New York Review of Books<\/em>\u00a0for only $99. And for as long as we\u2019re flattening the curve,\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0will be sending out a weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the\u00a0Daily<\/em>, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition\u00a0here<\/a>, and then\u00a0sign up for more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chinua Achebe, The Art of Fiction No. 139<\/a>
\nIssue no. 133 (Winter 1994)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

I once heard your English publisher, Alan Hill, talk about how you sent the manuscript of Things Fall Apart<\/em> to him.<\/p>\n

ACHEBE<\/p>\n

That was a long story. The first part of it was how the manuscript was nearly lost. In 1957 I was given a scholarship to go to London and study for some months at the BBC. I had a draft of Things Fall Apart<\/em> with me, so I took it along to finish it. When I got to the BBC, one of my friends\u2014there were two of us from Nigeria\u2014said, Why don\u2019t you show this to Mr. Phelps? Gilbert Phelps, one of the instructors of the BBC school, was a novelist. I said, What? No! This went on for some time. Eventually I was pushed to do it and I took the manuscript and handed it to Mr. Phelps. He said, Well . . . all right, the way I would today if anyone brought me a manuscript. He was not really enthusiastic. Why should he be? He took it anyway, very politely. He was the first person, outside of myself, to say, I think this is interesting. In fact, he felt so strongly that one Saturday he was compelled to look for me and tell me. I had traveled out of London; he found out where I was, phoned the hotel, and asked me to call him back. When I was given this message, I was completely floored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: JLPC \/ Wikimedia Commons \/ CC BY-SA 3.0.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bible<\/a>
\nBy Umberto Eco
\nIssue no. 126 (Spring 1993)<\/em><\/p>\n

I must say that the first few hundred pages of this manuscript really hooked me. Action packed, they have everything today\u2019s reader wants in a good story. Sex (lots of it, including adultery, sodomy, incest), also murder, war, massacres, and so on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Sembazuru \/ CC BY-SA (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0).<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notebooks<\/a>
\nBy Elizabeth Bishop
\nIssue no. 174, Summer 2005<\/em><\/p>\n

Hannah A.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of former birds who rested
\non ice-floes, who resisted
\ndragons, who nested
\nby the streams of lava
\nwhere they lived alone,
\nwhere marks of feathers can
\nbe seen upon the stone
\nor in the crumbling tufa,<\/p>\n

which although weathered
\nstill is deeply feathered
\nwhere the dry claws slithered
\n[on the ……………………….<\/span>scales]
\nof those who wore fur then,
\nor the inelegant pin\u2014
\nfeathers that marred the skin,
\nor dressed in scales \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

To read more from the\u00a0<\/em>Paris Review\u00a0archives, make sure to\u00a0subscribe<\/a>! In addition to four print issues per year, you\u2019ll also receive complete digital access to our sixty-seven years\u2019 worth of archives<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>And for a limited time, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to both\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>The New York Review of Books\u00a0for just $99.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Free this week: Chinua Achebe\u2019s Art of Fiction interview, a story by Umberto Eco, and selections from Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s notebooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: Marks of Feathers by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Free this week: Chinua Achebe\u2019s Art of Fiction interview, a story by Umberto Eco, and selections from Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s notebooks.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/07\/21\/redux-marks-of-feathers\/\" \/>\n<meta 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