Hello! Midweek time again. Here goes the second literature special. Hope you enjoy it.
- George Saunders: what writers really do when they write - George Saunders being a lovely teacher and walker-through as he talks about the thought processes behind his last novel Lincoln in the Bardo.
Why do I feel this to be a hopeful thing? The way this pattern thrillingly completed itself? It may just be – almost surely is – a feature of the brain, the byproduct of any rigorous, iterative engagement in a thought system. But there is something wonderful in watching a figure emerge from the stone unsummoned, feeling the presence of something within you, the writer, and also beyond you – something consistent, wilful, and benevolent, that seems to have a plan, which seems to be: to lead you to your own higher ground. - The Expendable Translator - How much of a translated work is to be attributed to the translator? Should he/she get a due of the royalty? In the times of yore when there were no royalties, translators (and authors) were just paid a lump sum for their work. So should translators earn royalty as well, or should they just be paid a fixed amount?
- George Orwell: Why I Write - Great essay from another great George.
What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. […] The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us. - What is the best Punctuation Mark? - Six writers pick their favourite punctuation mark. Entertaining.
I love a dash. The dashing dash, the well-tempered dash, the dash that contains multitudes: to dash is to hurry, to hurl, to sketch, to season. It links, subverts and interrupts. It can mean censorship and silence; emphasis, ellipsis, equivocation. The dash is eloquent, although it is the opposite of eloqui, to speak out. A dash is a leaving-out, and yet it is always eloquent. - On the Philosophical Implications of Shelving Books
And where does McNally’s biography section put Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker, about Robert Moses? In a bookstore in New York City, on a spit of land that might well have become a freeway onramp had Moses had his way, whose fame exceeds whose—and to whom? The simplest fix would be to shelve two copies, one under “Caro” and one under “Moses,” but this would be no solution—it would be an admission of organizational defeat. - My life with Oliver Sacks: ‘He was the most unusual person I had ever known’ - I’ve been waiting to share this since forever. Many more reasons to love Oliver Sacks.
- Allen Ginsberg’s Definition of the Beat Generation
Kerouac discouraged the notion of a coherent “generation” and said, “Ah, this is nothing but a beat generation!” They discussed whether it was a “found” generation, which Kerouac sometimes referred to, or “angelic” generation, or various other epithets. But Kerouac waved away the question and said “beat generation!” not meaning to name the generation but to un-name it. - Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of Fiction 64 - Of course, there can never be too much Vonnegut. This is a lovely lovely interview; read it slowly and enjoy the ride. Also, how Kurt Vonnegut is helping migrants in Singapore.
I said that only one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one.
And who was that?
Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that. - Why Doesn’t Ancient Fiction Talk About Feelings? - Interesting take on something I’ve wondered about rather often. Are we more fickle and weak-minded than our ancient ancestors? We spend so much time thinking about what we think; are we actually getting less done? No; it is more a gradual shift in the way western literature has evolved. I think Indian literature is much more feeling-centred : look at the Gita.
- Love in the Time of Numbness; or, Doctor Chekhov, Writer - Siddhartha Mukherjee is unbelievably talented and he puts it to good use.
It wasn’t just disease or death that Chekhov was trying to escape; it was deadliness. “There is a sort of stagnation in my soul,” he wrote to a friend. Chekhov, then, was looking to resensitize himself—to un-numb the numbness. He sought a place where he might inoculate himself against the ennui that was slowly destroying his soul.
That’s it for this edition; I’ve barely eked out from what I had collected. Have a great week and see you Sunday!