The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
“Here I am wanting some other language to rescue me, wanting some escape route, when the very desire to transform, to mean something in the world, to take to the air, is such a chubby little caterpillar urge. If I were only a bit older and sadder, a bit more eager to trot out pleasant prose, would I soon be puttering around Provence, writing some whimsical foodie memoir and chuckling about the locals?
...moreGood things happen when people who grow up listening to Thriller become poets.
There’s going to be a new Bukowski exhibit down Southern California way, including his “annotated racing forms” that will teach you his system for playing the horses.
Jason Pinter takes on the idea that men don’t read.
...more“When you’re not religious, sacredness means something that fills you with awe.
The creation of something awe-striking requires a pure offering, an opening up to the universe. It’s not always an act of risk, that could land you “in the clink” or with a broken body or with your blood trickling out onto the sidewalk, but it’s always an act of uncertainty, of changing molecules into something that wasn’t there before.
...more“When I first read E.B.White, I was brand new to reading and brand new to life. It didn’t occur to me that he was some man, that his characters were invented in his head, or based on himself, or based on the people he knew. I didn’t picture him when I read, at all. I never speculated about his sex life, or whether he got lonely, or whether the homes he spent time in were cold. I didn’t think about whether he was religious or whether he had gone to Harvard and been an asshole there or whether he was black or white or whether his father had been famous. I didn’t picture him in relation to me. I just read about Louis and Serena and Charlotte and Wilbur and Stuart Little, my friends, probably your friends too.
...more“I’m so, so tired of reading about how writing should be demystified, how it doesn’t work the way Cortazar describes at all, how you toil at it slowly like you’re scrubbing a toilet, how the important parts are rewriting everything (preferably with the help of a gaggle of fellow workshop women) and killing your darlings and not getting personally attached to your work, how “good rejection letters” are a cause for celebration, and how you should take a class at Mediabistro or teach one at Barnes and Noble.”
At Bookslut, Elizabeth Bachner, true to form, has a long, thoughtful and lyrical essay about Michael Greenberg’s new book, the work of Julio Cortazar and how we’ve compromised the magic of writing to our own detriment.
...moreAfter reviewing the book blogs this week, I’ve decided that if I see the words “Dan Brown” ever again I’m going to punch myself in the eyes with a Da Vinci Code decoder ring.
To save you some time, here’s what they have to say about him: He makes a lot of money.
...moreWith apologies to commenters who hated the word “unputdownable” in my post last week about the worst words ever, I will now point you in the direction of Elizabeth Bachner’s brilliant essay on that terrible phrase.
“There are … great books that are hard to read or slow-going, and also bad, waste-of-time books that are a slog.
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