The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
There are too many good writers for me to keep track of so, mostly for the sake of convenience, I categorize them: Koontz writes thrillers, Franzen does literature, King fills the world with horror, Snickett delights children.
The problem is that this pigeon-hole system, though it works with some authors, it woefully misrepresents others to the point of exclusion.
...moreWhen Martin Heidegger wrote his gargantuan Magnus opus, Being and Time, he posited that it was Angst, the fundamental human condition, that brought us into the most authentic relationship with our selves and our surroundings.
Angst, for Heidegger, is caused by coming face-to-face with the inevitability of our own death and is life in the state of agitation, unease—it’s the condition in which we realize just how strange the world is.
...moreIn this conversation, Melissa Febos makes a good point: What’s great about writers talking with writers is that they talk about writing.
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You’ve got to be good to write about love. You’ve got to be really good. Most of the time, when love is the task, a writer just gets carried away recycling impossible words and ends up a sap.
Not Anne Carson.
...moreThere is a romantic idea that great genius emanates from the tower.
The novelist, the philosopher, the architect, all retreat to their places of solitude to channel their minds and await inspiration. A few hours, days, months, years later, they emerge with a masterpiece.
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