“ … the power of Joyce’s language and the story of Stephen Dedalus refusing to become a priest in order to take up the mantle of art were so compelling to me. Dedalus wants to form the “uncreated conscience of his race.” That’s what I wanted to do, even though I didn’t really know what it meant. I do remember thinking, however, that to be a writer was the best thing a person could be. It seemed to promise maximum alertness to life. It seemed holy to me, and almost religious. ”
Whenever I read interviews with authors I usually cringe at the inevitable when-and-why-did-you-decide-to-become-a-writer question, but Jeffrey Eugenides totally killed it here.
(Source: theparisreview.org)
The great Toni Morrison, the U.S.’s only living winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is 82 today.
Today also would have been Audre Lorde’s 79th birthday.
I just want to love John Green in every way because he is intelligent and humble and one of the best YouTube personalities and humans but I read two of his books over the summer and found them entirely unspecial and veering dangerously into MPDG territory, and I was so disappointed because he is so smart and great.
Not that I have ever decided to read a book based on its reviews or rankings, but I feel like I should give The Fault in Our Stars a chance before I discount John-Green-as-an-author entirely.
(I was asked why I dislike the novel Atlas Shrugged so much; I answered; people asked me to make the answer rebloggable, and so I have. All of this, as always, is offered with the caveat that I might be—and often am—wrong.)
1. Atlas Shrugged is a novel of ideas. The plot exists only…
This is extremely interesting to me for several reasons. For one, I can attest that the plot is thin, because I’m halfway done with Atlas Shrugged and pretty much nothing of narrative note has happened yet. For another, I have so much respect for John Green as an intellectual and a lover of literature, and I am always interested in what he has to say (not just about books, but about everything). And for another, I don’t love his novels. But I really do love The Fountainhead. So I have lots of thoughts about these thoughts of his.
“ I take much pleasure in being alone
but there is also a strange warm grace in not being alone. ”
Charles Bukowski (via acherive)
(Source: henrycharlesbukowski)
“ Interviewer: Some people say they can’t understand
your writing, even after they read it two or three times.
What approach would you suggest for them?
William Faulkner: Read it four times. ”
From this spectacular interview. Don’t give up on Faulkner, people.
