[gallery] Speaking of Elena Ferrante … A month or so after completing her Neapolitan tetralogy I’m still thinking, every day, about these books. It’s a mug’s game to guess about the ebbs and flows of literary reputation, the formation and alteration of canons, but I can’t keep myself from thinking: This is the Tolstoy of our time. The story of Lenu and Lila has that same curious quality Tolstoy’s great novels have: a calm and absolute assurance that makes their events and people seem preternaturally real.
On Wednesday, Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You, which won Amazon’s book of the year award, simply tweeted a request to teachers not to assign emails to authors. In a series of explanatory tweets to angry users, who tweeted to chide her for being ‘selfish’ and tell her that students should stop reading her book, Ng patiently explained that a teacher required students to obtain a quote from her in order to receive full credit….To expect Ng to respond to the emails of 30 students is ridiculous. Instead of demanding a response or pressuring an author to respond by docking a student’s grade, perhaps it’s best to just go back to old-fashioned research.
Celeste Ng is right: authors shouldn’t feel forced to respond to readers | Books | The Guardian. No freaking kidding. And I suspect the people who are lashing out at Ng for not wanting to be swamped by demanding emails are the very same people who are outraged at how slowly George R. R. Martin is writing. There seem to be a good many readers who want writers to (a) always be writing and (b) always be available.
But not only is George R. R. Martin not your bitch, Celeste Ng isn’t your bitch either — no writer is.
If a writer writes a book, and a reader buys and reads that book, the transaction is complete. Something has been offered; that something has been received. A writer has no obligation to answer emails, sign books, or write more books. If he or she does those things, wonderful — but none of them is a duty.
I like Elena Ferrante’s way of being a writer: she does nothing for us except produce great books. She refrains from participating in the social elements of modern authorship — except for the occasional email interview — because she feels that anonymity and reticence preserve her ability to write honestly, with integrity, and without apology. As her devoted reader, I call that a damned good deal.
[gallery] lawrenceleemagnuson:
Lawren Harris (1885-1970)
Lake Harbour, South Shore, Baffin Island, Morning (1930)
oil on beaverboard 30.2 × 38.2 cm
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
“A Thank-You Note, to Be Accompanied with Lyre,” Brett Foster
portraitoftheartistasayoungman:
I have spent only three days here so far,
and have been gut-sick the entire time,
but I’ve managed to write three poems
I think I can live with, poems about living
and the other option. I hope I can live
with them. Besieged by adversities, I give
Praise to Somebody for sweet verse’s
irresistible remedies, and so much more.
What more can an invalid ask for?
A fourth poem, you ask? Well, here it is.
At least let’s praise art’s ancient deities.
While Euripides staged tragedies in Athens,
raging reminders of our sad entanglements,
these Pan-foot gods were making merry,
cavorting in their floral dances, alive forever,
plagueless in the wide fields of Arcady.
[gallery] drawingarchitecture:
Michelangelo LaTona, A Monument in Two Dimensions, 2015, Graphite, Ink, Paper, Mylar, Collage, Spray Paint, 18"x12"
The law requires that patients be referred for psychological examination if the doctor suspects they have depression or mental illness. But some doctors see suicide as a solution to suffering and depression as rational given patients’ circumstances. Last year only three of the 105 patients who died under the law were referred for a psychological exam.
A 2008 study published in the British Medical Journal examined 58 Oregonians who sought information on assisted suicide. Of them, 26% met the criteria for depressive disorder, and 22% for anxiety disorder. Three of the depressed individuals received and ingested the lethal drugs, dying within two months of being interviewed. The study’s authors concluded that Oregon’s law “may not adequately protect all mentally ill patients.”
Also concerning are the regular notices I receive indicating that many important services and drugs for my patients—even some pain medications—will not be covered by the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. Yet physician-assisted suicide is covered by the state and our collective tax dollars. Supporters claim physician-assisted suicide gives patients choice, but what sort of a choice is it when life is expensive but death is free?
[gallery] Abu-Bakarr Mansaray, A Nuclear Mosquito From Hell (2004)
In addition to measuring your ability to pay, as in the United States, the scores serve as a measure of political compliance. Among the things that will hurt a citizen’s score are posting political opinions without prior permission, or posting information that the regime does not like, such as about the Tienanmen Square massacre that the government carried out to hold on to power, or the Shanghai stock market collapse.
It will hurt your score not only if you do these things, but if any of your friends do them. Imagine the social pressure against disobedience or dissent that this will create.
Anybody can check anyone else’s score online. Among other things, this lets people find out which of their friends may be hurting their scores.
[gallery] This is worth buying if only for Garnette Cadogan’s moving, mournful, and yet hopeful essay on walking while black, especially in New York, “Black and Blue.” Full disclosure: I say this as a friend of Garnette’s who has moreover done some walking in New York with him. But trust me: that essay alone is worth the price of admission. And then as a bonus you get stories by David Mitchell, Alexander Hemon, Haruki Murakami — people like that.
Apparently, ISIS needs to do more than torture women and children and behead members of religious minorities in order to be considered newsworthy.