I’ve been combing through various of the Paris Review “Writers At Work” interviews, which are spectacular. William Faulkner looks like a pretty tough assignment. INTERVIEWER Mr. Faulkner, you were saying a while ago that you don’t like interviews. WILLIAM FAULKNER The reason I don’t like interviews is that I seem to react violently to personal […]
Continue reading →Earlier, in the wicious pride of my youth, I sometimes threw myself into postures, imitating writers I admired and producing a certain amount of Proust and water (the recipe for the Avignon lark pâté comes to mind: one lark, one horse) to Joyce and very small beer; but none of this survived the war, […]
Continue reading →A recent twitter exchange between Tim Carmody, Alexis Madrigal, Alison Arieff, and Brendan Koerner drew my attention to this nice Snarkmarket post from Carmody on digging up material from offline, which Carmody calls paleoblogging: Two weeks ago I praised Harper’s Scott Horton, who in addition to tiptop legal/political commentary regularly serves up poignant and relevant chunks […]
Continue reading →This interview is decidedly Matthiessen’s. Yet Norman’s unique combination of strength, subtly, economy, and directness come across in his brief questions. I like his first: “Define yourself.” It’s a nice read.
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