May 22, 2019
Close-Reading the Rhythm of a Thomas Pynchon Sentence
If you’ve read enough of my blog posts, you’ll likely realize that I have an abiding interest in the rhythm of sentences. In a blog post on first lines, I […]
October 7, 2013
A Note on Realism
The realist novel, for reasons I’m still figuring out, gains in power from a certain excess and messiness. This is why Chekhov and Turgenev write excellent novels, but nothing […]
October 19, 2012
Now or Never: The Writer and the Age
One thing that’s underestimated about writing is how now-or-never it is, how suddenly it crowds out of a few people. Many of the most powerful, permanent “ages” in literature have […]
January 4, 2012
The Virtues of Bad Writing
What we go to when we go to literature is an exit. Even social realism is escapist: We escape from ourselves into another self, that of the character. Readers like […]