Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 40
September 19, 2021
Writer’s Desk: There is Always a Mystery
There are three kinds of readers: those who have no idea who Jim Thompson is or have never read him (that’s most people), those who think he’s just about the best crime writer America ever produced, and (this last being a group that overlaps with the second) writers who wish they could do what he …
September 12, 2021
Writer’s Desk: Travel, Travel, and Travel More
Consider this as advice for a post-pandemic time, whenever that day finally dawns. Some writers may never need to leave their garret in order to have all that they need to generate worlds. Others work better from life. Here’s what some authors had to say about getting out and exploring the world: “I’ve always wanted …
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September 9, 2021
Screening Room: ‘The Duke’
In 1961, a semi-retired cabbie from the north of England got sick of retirees and war veterans having to pay a tax to watch the BBC. Then he was charged with stealing a Goya portrait from the National Gallery. The Duke is the charming if somewhat thin story about what happened next. My review ran …
September 8, 2021
Reader’s Corner: ‘The Afghanistan Papers’
My review of the blockbuster new book from Washington Post investigative reporter Craig Whitlock ran in PopMatters: When the last American troops bugged out of Hamid Karzai International Airport at the end of August 2021, the Beltway spin cycle churned furiously. Charges and counter-charges flew over the partisan wire. Instapundits snapped to attention at the …
September 5, 2021
Writer’s Desk: Let Your Characters Tell the Story
In 1987, psychedelic pied piper and one of America’s great novelists Ken Kesey taught a graduate writing class at the University of Oregon in which he and the students were to collaboratively write and publish a novel. His methods were unsurprisingly eclectic but his purpose was direct: “If we finish it and it gets published, …
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September 4, 2021
Screening Room: ‘Becoming Cousteau’
The new Liz Garbus documentary about Jacques Cousteau just played at the Telluride Film Festival and will likely get at least a brief theatrical run later in the year before showing on National Geographic. My review is at The Playlist: A pleasantly beautiful, if sometimes flatly rendered film, “Becoming Cousteau” serves as a solid introduction …
August 29, 2021
Writer’s Desk: Accept Imperfection
Despite what many might think, even the most talented writers harbor doubts about their talent. In fact, it is highly possible that self-doubt is crucial for many to succeed at their craft. A writer who just loves to death every line they slap down? That cannot be a good sign. Still, it is surprising the …
August 25, 2021
Literary Birthday: Martin Amis
In the time before the Internet, Martin Amis (born today in 1949) was a favored author of a certain type of cold-hearted literati. Novels like London Fields (1989) were scabrous, pitch-black satires of soulless urbanites that took no prisoners. But Amis was almost more scathing as a critic. He once pronounced that “all writing is …
August 24, 2021
Literary Birthday: Jorge Luis Borges
The Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges (born today in 1899) has a reputation in the literary world that is almost in inverse proportion to his slim output. A painstaking stylist, he published in a wide variety of areas—short stories of various genres, poems, essays, literary criticism—but kept his pieces short: His longest story was the …
August 22, 2021
Writer’s Desk: Use That First Draft
Back in 2015, when he was promoting his novel Nora Webster, Colm Tóibín talked about the advantages of growing older, from a personal standpoint: That’s one of the things you learn as you grow older. That if you don’t like someone, you never like them, and they never like you. It’s not something you grow …
