will self
-
Word of the Day: Agacerie
(n.); allurement, enticement, coquetry; flirtation; from the French agacer (“to tease”) Fictional characters – unlike the messy organisms from which they derive – float free from the sordid contingencies of the body, because, no matter how convincingly they’re portrayed as…
-
A Career No More
Writing books has become a hobby for the wealthy, writes Toby Young over at the Telegraph. Writers’ incomes have dropped 29% since 2005, he points out, and even when writers are getting paid, it’s never enough: I wrote another book…
-
The End of Literature
The digital age threatens works of serious literary merit, warns British novelist Will Self: Back when I began publishing novels, not only did the reviews in the quality press mean something – in terms of sales, yes, but also as…
-
Angelheaded Hipsters Burning
And we are, aren’t we, us fiftysomethings? We’re the pierced and tattooed, shorts-wearing, skunk-smoking, OxyContin-popping, neurotic dickheads who’ve presided over the commoditisation of the counterculture; we’re the ones who took the avant-garde and turned it into a successful rearguard action…
-
Notes on Self
At Salon, Laura Miller rebukes Will Self’s criticism of George Orwell at the BBC, arguing that the British novelist has misinterpreted “Politics and the English Language.” She emphasizes the importance that, in his essay, Orwell discussed political writing and did…
-
Writers Are Poor
A British study has confirmed that professional writers aren’t making very much money, and worse, that earnings for writers have fallen 29% since 2005. A survey of 2,500 British authors found median annual income at just £11,000 ($18,800) and only…
-
Sing for the Novel
In Remembrance of The Novel (d. 2014) Who after supplanting the Epic Enduring that “damned mob of scribbling women” And surviving Finnegans Wake Finally succumbed to the Internet Following the latest death sentence pronouncement for the novel, Matt Siedel posted…
-
Who Killed the Novel?
Last week, Will Self declared the novel dead. But so have a lot of people over the last century. Video may have killed the radio star, but who killed the novel? Rebecca Makkai asks that question over at Ploughshares: Who…
-
The Literary Novel is Dead! Long Live the Literary Novel!
It happens every now and then that we find someone toasting (or mourning) the death of the novel—this time, it’s Will Self’s turn. “How do you think it feels to have dedicated your entire adult life to an art form…
-
Nick Cave Monday #47: “More News From Nowhere”
Have you ever approached an attractive girl and said something clever but it turns out to be totally obvious? Yeah, me neither.