Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 17

GO EAST, YOUNG MAN

I'm off the New York to cover the superb PEN World Voices festival, and will do my level best to get posts up in something approaching real time, although we all know what they say about the road to hell.  And if you're a New York reader, I urge you to attend Marisa Silver's reading on Monday at McNally Jackson, where I will have the great pleasure of introducing her.  (The website says we will be "in conversation" which is sorta news to me, but it's not like we don't have plenty to talk...

EVENT: PETER CAREY AT THE HAMMER

Peter Carey is absolutely one of my favorite living novelists - we're talking top five list, here - and he will be in Los Angeles next week at the Hammer Museum in conversation with Mona Simpson and ... me.  I've been asked to join Mona for his post-reading interview.  (I don't mind admitting to you all that I'm just a wee bit intimidated by the prospect.)

Carey truly is a giant - can anyone forget their first encounter with Oscar and Lucinda?  True History of the Kelly Gang?  Australia came a...

TEV GIVEAWAY: ELEGY FOR APRIL

Apologies for not getting this up sooner, as promised.  I was swept away by the drunken revelry that is the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  I'm slowly recovering from the weekend, just in time to head off to New York on Thursday, where I will be covering a number of PEN World Voices events, so watch this space for updates. 

In the meantime, I am very pleased to offer a rare Monday edition of the giveaway.  Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Richard Rayner said of Elegy for April, 

 .....

LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Just a reminder to all my readers - not that you need it - that the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books rolls into town this weekend.  I'll be onsite to bring you some coverage, and you can check out the full schedule of events here.

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT: ELEGY FOR APRIL

John Banville has been among those grounded by the Iceland volcano, his New York launch for Elegy for April, his latest Benjamin Black novel, Eyjafjallajokull 's latest casualty.  Fortunately, TEV is delighted to offer this exclusive excerpt from the novel.  The scene is from Chapter Four, wherein Quirke - the brooding pathologist star of the series - has been released from a spell in rehab and returns to his apartment with Malachy, his adoptive brother.  Please come back tomorrow when the...

Addendum: Translating Toussaint, or the art of the passive offside

First up, many thanks to Marisa Silver for an outstanding week at the helm of TEV.  Thanks for classing up the joint.

I've got some more worthy guest content to share with you all this week, so next up is an "addendum" to a conversation between Jean-Philippe Toussaint's translators conducted here last year by Jim Ruland.  Jim recently heard from John Lambert, who wrote to him as follows:

Jean-Philippe Toussaint was in Berlin for the month of March. As I've translated three of his books...

Advice for the lovelorn...I mean writers

I have to give a speech this weekend to a group of young and aspiring writers. I was told they'd want to hear about my process, and about the writing life, both personally and professionally; I was told they wanted advice. I quickly drew a blank. Advice? For writers? Isn't anything I might say hopelessly subjective? There is good advice out there,  some really wise books about the subject. But I think the truth is that even if you hear these smart and reasoned pointers, you still have to...

Thursday Marginalia 2.0

First off: thanks to all who came out to the reading at Skylight last night. It was filled with friends and colleagues and even some new faces and I'm so grateful for the support.

And now...Thursday Marginalia, which will not be a roundup of news from the world of literary fiction, but will be a round-up of my bookshelves. Here, I submit a very brief, not-in-any-way exhaustive list of some books I really like. I've left out most of the big contemporary guns (DeLillo, Roth, Mahfouz, Calvino...

The Long and the Short of it

Yesterday, I went into a bookstore which shall not be named to sign some stock. The proprietor was gracious, but then told me that she hates reading short fiction. I know this is true for a lot of people, but it seemed to be a rather strange thing to tell someone who has just put out a book of short stories, but never mind etiquette.  She said when she reads stories, she gets involved with the characters and then feels shortchanged when the story ends, when she doesn't get to live for more...

Character - Part Two

How is it that fictional characters made of words typed on paper become real in a reader's mind? How does that alchemy happen? I'm always surprised each time it happens for me - when I realize that I have fully accepted a character I'm reading, that I've made that little leap of faith that allows me not to question the artifice that is fiction but to surrender to the invention. I know that fiction is not "real", that the characters I'm reading don't exist. But they have become real for me...