Tag Archives: the millions

Insert Russian Emotion into Repressed British Lit

books poetry lit December 4, 2013 Leave a comment

The Millions’ Year in Reading, one of the my favorite events in the online world, has begun! Sample this hilarious bit from a Gary Shteyngart review –

“I always had difficulty with the relative lack of emotion in English lit. I developed several strategies to make my reading easier. First, I would insert some hot Russian emotion into the chilly scenes by hand. So if a character is carrying on some abstruse conversation about standing for parliament or whatever, I would interrupt it in my mind with: “And then Casaubon Casaubonovich threw himself around her neck and cried violently.” Problem solved. Then I decided to Yiddishize some of the writing to make it more haimish. Take for example the first line of David Copperstein: “Whether I shall turn out to be the mensch of my own life, or whether that station will be held by some other putz, this spiel must show.”  RT

Caffeinated Links: YA Dystopia, David Mitchell on Autism, and The Counselor is a Very Bad Film

books poetry lit, film & television October 28, 2013 Leave a comment

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Joan Aiken‘s website is surely one of the most gorgeously designed author websites I’ve ever seen. Like stepping straight into a fantasy land.

Celeste Ng at The Millions highlights 5 Series You Probably Missed as a Kid (But Should Read as an Adult). I’ve read half of these and HIGHLY recommend them, especially Half Magic, and am adding the other half to my to-read list.  RT

Gorgeous, heartbreaking. David Mitchell on translating an autistic Japanese teen’s memoir, and his own son’s autism. “The conclusion is that both emotional poverty and an aversion to company are not symptoms of autism but consequences of autism – its harsh lockdown on self-expression and society’s near-pristine ignorance about what’s happening inside autistic heads.” RT

The ‘verse has been ablaze with the ending of Veronica Roth’s Divergent series (which is a great series, by the way. Veronica Roth speaks out. I think she made a brave choice. But I would have hated her for it had I found out only upon reading the book. RT

More The Millions’ goodness, making me want to re-read Colm Toibin’s The Master, which I read prior to reading Henry James. “He feels love profoundly, for women and men alike, but he can’t act on it in any way that might compromise his freedom as an artist, and instead he pours out his love for them in his novels after they’re dead. That, in this case, his love for Minny Temple gave us The Portrait of a Lady may be enough for some. It isn’t for me. As much as I care about books, I think people matter more in the end.” RT

Surprisingly, according to this roundup of reviews for it via Entertainment Weekly, it appears that the star-laden The Counselor was a very bad film. RT

Caffeinated Links

this & that September 11, 2013 Leave a comment

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New Van Gogh Identified –  A painting that sat for six decades in a Norwegian industrialist’s attic after he was told it was a fake Van Gogh was pronounced the real thing Monday, making it the first full-size canvas by the tortured Dutch artist to be discovered since 1928. RT Yahoo

This has been everywhere today, but is also the most joy-filled, magical, breathtaking celebration of the human body and the art of motion that I’ve seen in years.  Photographer Jordan Matter crafted a stunning series of ballet dancers striking poses in mundane situations. Gorgeous and magical. RT Dancers Among Us

The Millions reviews J.M. Coetzee’s The Childhood of Jesus–

“That’s just gibberish. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does mean something. It means something to me.”

“That may be so but it doesn’t mean anything to me. Language has to mean something to me as well as to you, otherwise it doesn’t count as language.”

In a gesture that he must have picked up from Inés, the boy tosses his head dismissively. “La la fa fa yam ying! Look at me!”

He looks into the boy’s eyes. For the briefest of moments he sees something there. He has no name for it. It is like — that is what occurs to him in the moment. Like a fish that wriggles loose as you try to grasp it. But not like a fish — no, like like a fish. Or like like like a fish. On and on. Then the moment is over, and he is simply standing in silence, staring.

“Did you see?” says the boy. RT The Millions

Last but not least, on the tenth anniversary of The X-Files, Gillian Anderson writes the most adorable letter ever to the world, in which she thanks David Duchovny for wearing those speedos. RT Pajiba

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