The Daily Rumpus
Get Overly Personal Emails
From Stephen Elliott
What is the most important thing England’s former colonies have in common? For Saikat Majumdar, an assistant professor at Stanford, the answer is boredom.
In his latest book, Prose of the World, Majumdar explores how writers from Ireland’s James Joyce to India’s Amit Chaudhuri spin the everyday dullness of marginalization into gleaming prose.
...moreFor the Atlantic‘s “By Heart,” “a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature,” Jim Shepard discusses Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce, and the painfully fleeting nature of epiphany:
...moreThis kind of conversion notion is based on a very comforting idea—that if only we had sufficient information, we wouldn’t act badly.
The moment when a new book is begun it is a moment that vibrates, as potential energy (a writer’s wisdom distilled into a completed work, printed, bound, placed in your hands), converted slowly into kinetic energy (second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day) with each turn of the page.
It’s the 107th anniversary of everybody’s favorite James Joycian holiday!
That’s right—Bloomsday, the 24 hr period in which Leopold Bloom makes his way through Dublin in Ulysses. One way to appreciate those 265,000 words is through twitter or there’s always the NPR profile, and if that’s not enough—an ipad app!
...more
In This Light, a collection of Melanie Rae Thon’s short stories, shows the writer’s shifts in the last twenty years, while reminding us of her powerful, haunting storytelling.John Barry has a piece up at The Baltimore City Paper in which he argues that too many American short story writers are taught to try to mimic that famous last paragraph in James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.” And this just might be why no one reads short stories anymore.
...moreThe deadline for entry into the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry prizes is nearing. These are some of the most generous poetry prizes available, and they give a large number of them every year. The Rumpus interviewed Mary Rosenberg last March to discuss the prizes and how she approaches poetry in general.
...more“Sit back. I’m going to tell you a story,” Frank said in his brogue, looking into the distance like a Homerian epic-teller. “Don’t you ever dare steal it.”
...moreToday is the 105th anniversary of Leopold Bloom’s one-day passage through the ordinary streets of Dublin in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Dubliners and Joyce-lovers around the world are celebrating the author as well as the book, with readings, races, reenactments, and even Twitter (don’t worry, they only adapted the tenth chapter).
...more