I have been known to bristle at an author (or other creator) expanding their created world. I first felt this reaction when I learned that William Faulkner filled out the rest of the characters' biographies after the end of events in The Sound and the Fury. (They were, as you might expect, universally miserable.) It … Continue reading To Expand the World or to Not Expand the World, That is the Question: On Nghi Vo’s ‘The Chosen and the Beautiful’ Among Others
Jane Austen
In Praise of the Try-Hards: ‘The Other Bennet Sister’
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone is the protagonist of their own story. (And also that any writing about Pride and Prejudice must re-create a version of its famous first line.) Shortly after writing my post of "unanswerable questions" and "roguish speculations" about Pride and Prejudice, wherein I shared my sympathy for poor, … Continue reading In Praise of the Try-Hards: ‘The Other Bennet Sister’
Here’s the Thing About … Jane Austen
Friends, we are barreling toward the arbitrary deadline when we recognize the changing of one year into the next. I may work my way up to a longer Jane Austen series. (We live in hope!) But for now, a highly subjective and yet unquestionably correct ranking of all Austen's novels. (Just kidding—question me!) 6. Mansfield … Continue reading Here’s the Thing About … Jane Austen
‘Pride and Prejudice,’ Unanswerable Questions and Roguish Speculations
Let’s round out the year with a Jane Austen mini-series. Austen has a reputation among the uninformed of being treacly, old timey romance. Mark Twain famously declared that he wanted to “dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” Twain always writes like the cat who got the cream and … Continue reading ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ Unanswerable Questions and Roguish Speculations
On the Re-Reading Life and Vivian Gornick’s ‘Unfinished Business’
Looking over my reading list this past year I saw stellar book after stellar book. Bam, bam, bam, nearly all excellent reads. And then I got to the past few weeks and realized that things lately have been merely fine—good but not great, decent but not deepening. And then I picked up Vivian Gornick's Unfinished … Continue reading On the Re-Reading Life and Vivian Gornick’s ‘Unfinished Business’
Dogs, Coffee, & Books 