{"id":162933,"date":"2023-01-11T11:00:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=162933"},"modified":"2023-01-10T16:27:47","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T21:27:47","slug":"relentlessness-a-syllabus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/","title":{"rendered":"Relentlessness: A Syllabus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Photograph by Sophie Haigney.<\/p><\/div>\n

In our new Winter issue<\/a><\/em>, Belinda McKeon interviewed<\/a> Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn, the author of ten novels, two books of short stories, and several collections of essays and journalism. <\/em>\u201cIn the autumn of 2000,\u201d he told her, \u201cI taught a course at the New School called Relentlessness, and I chose to teach translations of some ancient Greek texts, and Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Ingmar Bergman, Sylvia Plath. The class was very useful because it gave me a bedrock of theory about what this sort of work was doing. … Once you have that certain authority, you can actually write a plainer prose.\u201d <\/em>We asked<\/em> T\u00f3ib\u00edn for his syllabus from that class, along with a short introduction<\/em>, as <\/em>the first in a new series we are launching called Syllabi.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am interested in texts that are pure voice or deal with difficult experience using a tone that does not offer relief or stop for comfort. Sometimes, the power in the text comes from powerlessness, whether personal or political. Sometimes, death is close or danger beckons or violence is threatened or enacted. Sometimes, there is a sense of real personal risk in the text\u2019s revelations. Sometimes, there is little left to lose. All the time, the tone is incantatory or staccato or filled with melancholy recognitions.<\/p>\n

Euripides, Medea<\/em><\/p>\n

Sophocles, Electra<\/em><\/p>\n

Sophocles,\u00a0Antigone<\/em><\/p>\n

Sylvia Plath,\u00a0Ariel<\/em><\/p>\n

Louise Gl\u00fcck, The Wild Iris<\/em><\/p>\n

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red<\/em><\/p>\n

Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory<\/em><\/p>\n

Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer<\/em><\/p>\n

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis<\/em><\/p>\n

Nadine Gordimer, The Late Bourgeois World<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata<\/em><\/p>\n

John McGahern, The Barracks<\/em><\/p>\n

B\u00e9la Tarr and \u00c1gnes Hranitzky, The Turin Horse<\/em><\/p>\n

Doris Lessing, The Grass Is Singing<\/em><\/p>\n

J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron<\/em><\/p>\n

B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k, Bluebeard\u2019s Castle<\/em><\/p>\n

Constance Debr\u00e9, Love Me Tender<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\u2019s most recent book is\u00a0<\/em>The Magician.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSometimes, there is little left to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68590],"tags":[3401,5301,12071,11328,67827,829,1362,9801,12331,1435,8494,16806,2704,1445],"class_list":["post-162933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syllabi","tag-anne-carson","tag-colm-toibin","tag-doris-lessing","tag-euripides","tag-featured","tag-j-m-coetzee","tag-joan-didion","tag-louise-gluck","tag-nadine-gordimer","tag-oscar-wilde","tag-sophocles","tag-syllabus","tag-sylvia-plath","tag-winter-issue"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRelentlessness: A Syllabus by Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 11, 2023 \u2013 \u201cSometimes, there is little left to lose.\u201d\" \/>\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\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Relentlessness: A Syllabus by Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 11, 2023 \u2013 \u201cSometimes, there is little left to lose.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-01-11T16:00:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/img-1751-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ec2c033912834e1e6ce2d45067ab3cc5\"},\"headline\":\"Relentlessness: A Syllabus\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-01-11T16:00:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/\"},\"wordCount\":323,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/01\/11\/relentlessness-a-syllabus\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/img-1751-768x1024.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Anne Carson\",\"Colm Toibin\",\"Doris Lessing\",\"Euripides\",\"Featured\",\"J.M. 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