May 2011
19 posts
“This is what I mean when I call myself a writer. I construct sentences. There’s a rhythm I hear that drives me through a sentence. And the words typed on the white page have a sculptural quality. They form odd correspondences. They match up not just through meaning but through sound and look.”
—
Don DeLillo (via nouvelliste)
We can personally attest to the truthfulness of this quote. DeLillo actually cares about how the words and sentences look on the page. How great is that?
“The problem with the dash—as you may have noticed!—is that it discourages truly efficient writing. It also—and this might be its worst sin—disrupts the flow of a sentence. Don’t you find it annoying—and you can tell me if you do, I won’t be hurt—when a writer inserts a thought into the midst of another one that’s not yet complete?”
—
— Noreen Malone, making a case on Slate against the overuse of the em dash, that rebel of the punctuation pantheon that allows a writer to insert a stray piece of information or jump cut from one thought to another.
Seconded.
(via markcoatney)
Thirded. We try and discourage it as much as possible.
Putin speaks to high school teacher; hearts Hemingway
“I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.” —Vladimir Putin
In which Putin grants an interview to a high school teacher for Outdoor Life, then the New Yorker picks it up, and we all realize what we already knew.
“I must say, going to the ballgame with Don was one of the great things, because he goes with his mitt. He’s up there for every fly ball.”
—Salman Rushdie, on going to a Yankee game with Don DeLillo
“All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.”
—
—John Cheever (via literaryflack)
Au contraire! Don DeLillo is a life-long Yankees fan, as is Paul Auster.
Proof: Here they are (several years ago) at a Yankees game with fellow fans from the Gotham Book Mart.
DeLillo has written:
”I remember one afternoon, in October, hearing a strange sound, a little like surf, and wondering what it was. And later I realized it was the sound made by the crowd at Yankee Stadium when Tommy Henrich hit a late-inning home run.” (NYT)
On reading long novels
“I can’t say that I enjoyed every minute of it, or even that I enjoyed all that much of it at all, but I can say that by the time I got to the end of it I was glad to have read it. Not just glad that I had finally finished it, but that I had started it and seen it through. I felt as though I had been through something major, as though I had not merely experienced something but done something, and that the doing and the experiencing were inseparable in the way that is peculiar to the act of reading. And I’ve had that same feeling, I realize, with almost every very long novel I’ve read before or since.”
—Mark O’Connell, on The Stockholm Syndrome Theory of Long Novels in The Millions
(emphasize ours)
This is Edith Wharton’s housekeeper. With her dogs. I know, we’re going a little crazy over here. However, it’s worth mentioning that these images were all found on the fabulous website of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Yale has just announced that they are making their entire digital collection available to the public for free and unlimited use.
So everyone go crazy.
Edith Wharton! And her dogs!
It’s almost too easy!
Is there a Tumblr for writers and their dogs? There should be.
What Not to Ask a Writer
Emily St. John Mandel helpfully guides us on unhelpful questions:
“So when’s your next book coming out?”
My NEXT book? I have no idea, but it’ll probably be a while. In the meantime, allow me to introduce you to my current book. It came out a week ago. It took me two and a half years to write.
