proust

  • Coming Home to Proust

    At The Millions, J.P. Smith describes the singular effect that Marcel Proust has had on his growth as a writer: This isn’t a rambling, stream-of-consciousness book of memories lost and found; it’s a novel with a subtle and solid architecture, where…

  • Tell Me about Yourself

    Do you love this shit? Are you high right now? Do you ever get nervous? Quizzes are everywhere these days, from meandering author interviews to hard-hitting investigations to exactly which Disney princess corresponds to your introverted spirit animal. Read about the…

  • Reading Mademoiselle Gantrel

    Reading Mademoiselle Gantrel

    We squinted into the smoky room and saw ourselves on junior year abroad, frolicking on the Left Bank with artists in berets like hers.

  • 140 Characters or More

    Make sure no one else is awake. Turn off the lights. Your windows can stay open. Now turn on your phone and begin reading. Repeat as necessary each night. Do not stop until the very last word of the very…

  • The Rumpus Interview with Keith Lee Morris

    The Rumpus Interview with Keith Lee Morris

    Keith Lee Morris discusses his latest book Traveler’s Rest, Lewis and Clark, and how writing a novel about dreams requires much more than sleep.

  • The Rumpus Interview with Garth Greenwell

    The Rumpus Interview with Garth Greenwell

    Garth Greenwell discusses his debut novel, What Belongs to You, crossing boundaries, language as defense, and the queer tradition of novel writing that blurs boundaries between fiction and essay and autobiography.

  • Making Up for Lost Time

    For The Millions, Hannah Gersen recalls past attempts to read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and explains why she came up short. The essay also serves as an announcement for a new series, in which Gersen will once again attempt to…

  • Against Realism

    Against Realism

    What is it Ferrante has that American fiction lacks?

  • My Evenings Reading Alone

    My Evenings Reading Alone

    For nearly ten years I had lain beside him: the snoring was a blow, but, looking back, it was also a necessary portent, an etch in our story, the fuzzy spot on a picture frame you can’t tell is from…

  • Looking Back to Modernism

    At the Guardian, novelist Julian Barnes shares his experiences developing a taste for art during his childhood, and how modernism worked to change his early impressions of what art could be. In addition, he offers insight as to how modernist…

  • The Joy of Knausgaard

    For Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon works to define “contemporary” literature and wonders where Karl Knausgaard’s My Struggle fits into the mix. What he ultimately argues is that contemporary literature is often “project based,” and that Knausgaard’s self-exploratory novel is the most definitive example of this…

  • What Dreams May Come

    In a culture where everything is assigned a market value, imagination isn’t in high demand. Over at The Millions, Chloe Benjamin wonders why some of imagination’s most vivid manifestations—dreams and fiction—fall so low on our priority list: But in the…