Recent posts tagged literature
2023
Wrecking Balls For Language Barriers
Machine translation of fiction: not for commercial use, but maybe personal?
2022
The Postmodern Story (Or Lack Thereof)
On the lack of stories with moral authority and narrative force about life in the vacuum of reactionary postmodernity.
One-Pointed Text
The overwhelming majority of Western fiction that tangles with Buddhism comes out looking flat-flooted and foolishly literal.
2021
Prizeless
Most of my curiosities about things are not aroused by awards.
She Said
Some novels by women you need to know about, and probably don't.
An All-New 'Epitaph' -- Two, In Fact
Two, two, TWO new translations of Machado de Assis's amazing novel came out when my back was turned!
2020
One With Everything (Literary Edition)
On the idea of writing a novel that encompasses the whole of life (and other delusions).
2019
Something To Push Against
On constraints as creative impetuses, and the fallacies that arise therein.
2018
It's A Living
If written fiction's becoming nothing but a prelude to adaptation, what's that mean for written fiction itself?
2017
Lock, Stock, And Character Dept.
Stock "literary" characters can be just as one-dimensional as stock SF characters.
Cheap Shots Dept.
On politics in literature, again.
Politicaliterary Dept.
On politics in literature, spoken and unspoken (and a few other things).
2016
Cynthia's Blues Dept.
Can in time a comic book stand in the same realm as anything Henry James produced? I'm sure it's possible; I'd argue it's already happened.
Outside The Cocoon Dept.
"In this cocoon, the working class is something to make money from..."
2015
Blinded By The Light Dept.
How not to appropriate history in the name of middlebrow art.
Canonade Dept.
More literary canon calamities.
2014
They Blinded Me With Science Dept.
On why non-SF writers sometimes disdain SF, continued.
My Ears! My Ears! Dept.
Few things hurt a writer worse than having a tin inner ear.
Guns And Butter Dept.
Why does it always come down to having to choose between science and art, between Shakespeare or the bomb?
Talk Is Cheap, Thank Goodness Dept.
More on why it's good that some books might never be filmed.
Page Down Dept.
Not every book is a first draft for a movie. Or should be.
The Books Or The Lifestyle Dept.
There's little in the way of serious literature out there about the psychodynamics of role-playing games.
A Washing Machine In The Sky Dept.
Why literary fiction often chooses to be fantastic in such a straight-laced way.
The Prediction Fiction And Other Conniptions Dept.
On John McCarthy's odd comments about literary fiction vs. SF.
This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get Dept.
"In a few generations, there will be no new ideas, only popular ones."
