Tag Archives: Literature

Jon Fosse, the Nobel Prize, and the Art of What Can’t Be Named

In his novels and plays, the Norwegian author has continually probed the limits of the perceptible world.

By Merve Emre, October 6, 2023

Photograph by David Levene / eyevine / Redux

In Oslo, in September, I attended the preview of Jon Fosse’s play “I Svarte Skogen Inne” (“Inside the Black Forest”).

The theatre was small and dark, without a stage, and the scenery was minimal: a large illuminated rock in the middle, some scattered trees, and the audience members, many of whom were seated in folding chairs ringed around the rock. A trumpeter entered first, blowing long, melancholy notes, followed by a young man. The man explained that he had gone for a drive and, when his car had stalled, he had wandered into the woods. It grew darker and colder, and the audience heard the voices of an older man and an older woman speak about the young man, expressing their distress at the direction his life had taken. Then, without warning, a young woman appeared.

She was called a younger woman in the script, but it would have been better to describe her as a presence—or, to borrow the title of Fosse’s new novel, “Kvitleik,” a shining. She was a modern angel, a peroxide blonde with stern cheekbones, in a glittering white slip dress and a white fur stole. Her hair was cropped. Her feet were bare and beautiful and caught the light from the rock with each step. She spoke to the man, urging him to return home. As he roamed the theatre, trembling, followed by her voice and the trumpet, he stopped right next to the chairs of the audience members to argue, to plead, although it was not always clear for what. “My own shame is bigger than myself,” he screamed. I watched the faces of the audience; most of them remained impassive, stony. They looked down at their hands or feet and away from his stricken face. In their withdrawal, they seemed no different from the trees that surrounded them.

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/jon-fosse-the-nobel-prize-and-the-art-of-what-cant-be-named

How Plants Helped Colette Satisfy an Insatiable Desire

Damon Young on Colette’s Life in the Garden

By Damon Young, April 13, 2020

Source: https://lithub.com/how-plants-helped-colette-satisfy-an-insatiable-desire/

Your Literary Guide to the 2023 Oscars ‹ Literary Hub

By Eliza Smith, March 10, 2023

From article…

Sure, we’re a website about books, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get in on the Oscars fun, too. (Exhibit A: If they gave Oscars to books, our 2022 nominees.) And while there are few adaptations in this year’s lineup, we’ll still be tuning in on Sunday to celebrate storytelling, judge the Academy’s taste, and perhaps witness some live drama. In the meantime, we’re recommending the books and films you should read and watch next for each Best Picture contender. Follow along with us on Twitter on Sunday at 8 pm ET!

Source: Your Literary Guide to the 2023 Oscars ‹ Literary Hub

Imaginary Histories: How Tolkien’s Fascination with Language Shaped His Literary World ‹ Literary Hub

Damien Bador on the Origins of a Fantasy Classic

By Damien Bador, April 8, 2021

JRR Tolkien disliked novels that tended toward autobiography, though he did not dispute the fact that an author has no choice but to use his or her own experiences in writing fiction. The Lord of the Rings is most assuredly not an allegory for the 20th century, nor are any of his protagonists a reflection of Tolkien himself. Yet, if there is a domain inextricably intertwined with the life of our author, it is linguistics: comparative philology, to be precise.

From article…

For Tolkien, language and literature necessarily go hand in hand; this is the only way to ensure proper understanding of a text, particularly in the case of ancient texts. Tolkien conveyed this point of view in his analysis of Beowulf, published in The Monsters and the Critics: And Other Essays, which combined philological rigor with literary appreciation at a time when critics generally saw the epic poem merely as a source of historical information distorted by myth.

The importance of language is easily discernible in Tolkien’s obsession with finding the perfect turn of phrase, even if it meant reworking certain sentences countless times. His preoccupation with linguistic detail also found its way into his stories themselves, focusing on the languages spoken by the various characters. No one who has read The Lord of the Rings can fail to have been struck by the passages in Quenya or Sindarin, the two main Elvish languages, and in perusing the novels’ appendices, it becomes clear to the reader that these are true languages, each with its own specific grammar and vocabulary, and that Tolkien also paid close attention to the evolution of these languages, and to their relationships to one another.

Source: https://lithub.com/imaginary-history-how-tolkiens-fascination-with-languages-shaped-his-literary-legacy/

Benjamin Franklin’s literary legacy lives on in country’s longest-running lending library | PBS NewsHour

Benjamin Franklin’s literary legacy lives on in country’s longest-running lending library | PBS NewsHour

By Pamela Watts, Sep 12, 2022 6:25 PM EDT

From article…

Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/benjamin-franklins-literary-legacy-lives-on-in-countrys-longest-running-lending-library#audio

Will literature survive? – UnHerd

We have fallen out of love with good writing

By Mary Gaitskill, June 17, 2022

from article…

As a fiction writer who teaches, I often speak about what I love in fiction, what to me makes it powerful and engaging.

This is a version of a talk I have been giving for years to students and other interested parties; it is a talk I’ve become — what is the right word? — uncertain about in the last five years, not because I don’t believe what I’m saying or that I care about it less but because I’m not sure that people can find it meaningful anymore.

There are a number of reasons I feel this, most of which have to do with how we take in knowledge and information and how that has changed the nature of perception. I’m not saying anything new here: think iPhones and the constant staring there at, a skull-fracturing change which plainly has consequences beyond how people understand the reading and writing of fiction.

Source: Will literature survive? – UnHerd