{"id":148511,"date":"2020-10-20T13:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=148511"},"modified":"2020-10-20T12:50:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T16:50:36","slug":"redux-sightseer-in-oblivion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/20\/redux-sightseer-in-oblivion\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Sightseer in Oblivion"},"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

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Truman Capote, 1957. Sketch: Rosalie Seidler.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This week at The Paris Review<\/em>, no one wants to get out of bed. Read on for Truman Capote\u2019s Art of Fiction interview<\/a>, Shruti Swamy\u2019s short story \u201cA House Is a Body<\/a>,\u201d and Thomas Lux\u2019s poem \u201cSleepmask Dithyrambic<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>? Or, to celebrate the students and teachers in your life, why not gift our\u00a0special subscription deal<\/a>\u00a0featuring a copy of\u00a0Writers at Work around the World<\/em>\u00a0for 50% off? And for as long as we\u2019re flattening the curve,\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0will be sending out a new 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

Truman Capote, The Art of Fiction No. 17<\/a>
\nIssue no. 16, Spring\u2013Summer 1957<\/em><\/p>\n

I am a completely horizontal author. I can\u2019t think unless I\u2019m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I\u2019ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don\u2019t use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon. Obsessions of this sort, and the time I take over them, irritate me beyond endurance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A House Is a Body<\/a>
\nBy Shruti Swamy
\nIssue no. 225, Summer 2018<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, stay home with me today. I\u2019ll call the school. You go back to bed.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

You go to school or you go back to bed.<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t try me right now. The anger in her own voice scared her. The girl fled. Anika!<\/p>\n

She called the school. Something going around. She was shaking. The anger in her voice sounded like her mother\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Anika?<\/p>\n

She lay in her bed, still with her school clothes on, and pressed her face into the pillow. Now the mother was gentle and stroked her back. The structure of her rib cage was like a pair of hands, each rib a slender finger. The little body contained a soul. She wasn\u2019t crying, but her face was flushed.<\/p>\n

Come let\u2019s get you\u2014<\/p>\n

No!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sleepmask Dithyrambic<\/a>
\nBy Thomas Lux
\nIssue no. 87, Spring 1983<\/em><\/p>\n

You must remove your sleepmask, haul it
\nfrom your eyes, sleep a white sleep without
\nslapping floodwaters\u2014let it go,
\nlet its thumbscrews loosen, let it unwind
\nlike bandages (lily-flavored flesh
\nbeneath, pearl-colored the pale
\ncaused by)\u2014lower it: sightseer
\nin oblivion, all the dumb
\njoy of death\u2019s languorous leaning
\nover happy tombstones\u2014send it downstream \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

And 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>. Or, to celebrate the students and teachers in your life, why not gift our\u00a0special subscription deal<\/a>\u00a0featuring a copy of\u00a0<\/em>Writers at Work around the World\u00a0for 50% off<\/em>?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, we\u2019ve lowered the paywall on Truman Capote\u2019s Art of Fiction interview, a short story by Shruti Swamy, and a poem by Thomas Lux.<\/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-148511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: Sightseer in Oblivion by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, we\u2019ve lowered the paywall on Truman Capote\u2019s Art of Fiction interview, a short story by Shruti Swamy, and a poem by Thomas Lux.\" \/>\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\/10\/20\/redux-sightseer-in-oblivion\/\" 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