Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 41

OH MUSTN'T WE?

The Guardian reports on the latest digital development: A Twitter book club.

Not exactly Cyril Connolly, but we mustn't mock. A little research on the Amazon site shows that some people are obeying Ross's eclecticism. Some customers who bought Ronson also bought his other suggestions - four of them even bought Leaves of Grass. It may be Ross's biggest contribution so far to our cultural welfare, and perhaps no more mysterious in its process than David Beckham endorsing Gillette (Beckham knowing n

REASONS TO GO TO PARIS # 847*

Peter Jackson's Tintin movie will be released abroad eight weeks before hitting American shores.  (Thanks to FOTEV C-)

* Oh, like we really need another one ...

PERSISTANCE

 

Today's mail - eight loaves of Harry's Brioche Tranchée, delivered fresh from Paris via London.

Nearly two years ago, I wrote about my love for a certain variety of French supermarket bread - Harry's brioche tranchée - and bemoaned the impossiblity of having it shipped overseas in an age when you can buy everything from prescription drugs to diapers online.  I am, however, nothing if not dogged ... or compulsive, depending on whom you ask.  Either way, they are handy traits for bloggers and nove

NY EVENT: PRINCETON AT THE VIRGINIA WOOLF CONFERENCE

We thought our readers might be interested in checking out the band Princeton, whose music draws inspiration from interesting literary sources.  The details are below:

The Stephen Pelton Dance Theater in collaboration with the band Princeton on an evening of dance and music. Friday, June 5th, 8:00, Pope Auditorium, Lincoln Center 113 W. 60th St. Tickets are $20.

Princeton, the Los Angeles-based trio, join forces with San Francisco’s Stephen Pelton Dance Theater in it was this: it was this: an eve

MUST READ: SHOW OR TELL

You will want to check out Louis Menand's fine New Yorker essay on the explosive growth of the MFA and its ramifications:

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem. The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring wr

MONDAY MARGINALIA

 

New fatherhood sleep deprivation has pushed our Joseph O'Neill interview back a week but in the interim, some worthy links for your morning coffee:

* Comprehensive BEA coverage can be found at PW.  Among blogs, you'll find the most worthwhile BEA coverage at Jacket Copy and Galleycat.

* Echoing our own thoughts from last year, Alain de Botton calls for "an ambitious new literature of the office."

It used to be a central ambition of novelists to capture the experience of working life. From Balzac

TEV GIVEAWAY: THE WRITER'S NOTEBOOK

Well, you've had a chance to see for yourself this week what sort of essays you'll find in Tin House's The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House.  In addition to Susan Bell's memorable essay on The Great Gatsby, you can check out Dorothy Allison, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, D. A. Powell, and others break down elements of craft and share insights into their own writing. With how-tos, close readings, and personal anecdotes, The Writer's Notebook offers all writers useful advice and inspir

LITERATURE'S LOSERS

In honor of my protagonist Harry Rent, I've contributed a list of "Literature's Losers" to Bookforum's revamped website.  It begins thus:

Long before Amazon.com reviewers tyrannically demanded sympathetic and likable protagonists, literature was reliably populated by leading men of a less bland stripe. It’s hard for me to understand why someone would want to spend their reading hours in the company of the virtuous, the accomplished, and the capable, when failure is so much more interesting—and, s

GUEST ESSAY: REVISIONING "THE GREAT GATSBY" (IV)

Herewith, the conclusion of Susan Bell's marvelous essay "Revisioning The Great Gatsby," which can be found, along with a number of other superb essays on craft, in The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House, and is reprinted here courtesy of Bell and Tin House.  Bell is the author of The Artful Edit and a considerably expanded version of this essay can also be found in her book.

Perkins’s influence was more or less limited to the macro-edit. Unlike his editing of Thomas Wolfe’s work, Pe

GUEST ESSAY: REVISIONING "THE GREAT GATSBY" (III)

Herewith, Part Three of Susan Bell's essay "Revisioning The Great Gatsby," which can be found in The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House, and is reprinted here courtest of Bell and Tin House.  Bell is the author of The Artful Edit.

Fitzgerald edited his way out of this clump once Perkins pointed it out to him. He broke up the thick block of data into smaller pieces he judiciously distributed throughout the text and enmeshed in the dialogue and drama. The improvement can be seen in the