The Chronicle: 12/16/2005: The Fragmentation of Literary Theory

The Chronicle: 12/16/2005: The Fragmentation of Literary Theory

Daphne Patai, a professor of Brazilian literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and co-editor of Theory’s Empire, argues that theory-driven tendencies in the profession have fed an obsession with “ersatz politics” among students and done lasting damage to their literary education. “We’re teaching theory to students, […]

John Barth and bad reviewing

The John Barth and bad reviewing

A) Barth can’t “get on” with his stories without the “postmodern soft-shoe routine” because performing such a routine is precisely his way of telling stories. Asking him to lose his “verbal pyrotechnics” and his “sef-consciousness” (”talking about the telling itself,” as Gilsdorf clumsily puts it) is asking him to lose […]

Philip Roth: ‘It no longer feels a great injustice that I have to die’

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | ‘It no longer feels a great injustice that I have to die’

“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about literature at all,” I say.
“Ha, ha,” he says. “Now you’re talking! I would be wonderful with a 100-year moratorium on literature talk, if you shut down all literature departments, close the […]

On the Spot at Fantasybookspot: Kelly Link | Fantasybookspot

On the Spot at Fantasybookspot: Kelly Link | Fantasybookspot
Kelly Link writes books with zombies in them.

Subjects: interview, fiction

Pete Bagge on Amtrak

Pete Bagge on Amtrak
Funny comics.

Subjects: journalism, comics

The Maccabees and the Hellenists - Hanukkah as Jewish civil war. By James Ponet

The Maccabees and the Hellenists - Hanukkah as Jewish civil war. By James Ponet
Subjects: history

Merry Hannukah

I just finished the second draft of the novel.

Subjects: fiction, me

Gatsby

“Commercially, the novel [The Great Gatsby] was a disappointment to Fitzgerald. He had expressed a hope for a sale of 75,000 copies. The first printing of slightly over 20,000 copies sold slowly, however. A second printing of 3,000 copies was put through in August [1925], but the subsequent sales never caught up with it, and […]

The Fiction Machine

THE FICTION MACHINE - The Workshop and the hacks.

Let us briefly recapitulate. Large, impersonal, ever-shuffling workshops are led by writers of, on average, mediocre ability who throw only part of their energy into helping their students. The result of all this is as predictable as it was inevitable: Writing is taught by rote. Limited in […]

Boing Boing: Slim volume of anagram-themed comedy poetry

Boing Boing: Slim volume of anagram-themed comedy poetry