tetw a demandé: Tetw - a Tumblr dedicated to classic journalism and narrative non-fiction - would like to know: What are your favourite articles, features or essays?
I can’t apologize enough for getting back to you so late. If you are in fact still interested in my answering your question, I’ll list a few of the many literary items I hold dear:
— I’m sure it’s been cited by the majority of those whom you’ve asked, but I cannot refrain from lauding “Authority and American Usage”, from DFW’s Consider the Lobster.
— I’ve also found to be absolutely indispensable “Garner’s Modern American Usage”, the usage guide that serves as the focal point in DFW’s aforementioned essay. Garner exhibits, through the entire book, an uncanny ability to provide useful and concise information while managing to come across as being neither overly prescriptive nor merely dry and descriptive.
— I also feel I’d be remiss not to propose to you the work of William S. Burroughs as probably the most thorough and surprisingly detached firsthand exploration and description of the sordid but fascinating world in which opiate and other drug addicts lived during the forties and fifties. (And did you know that Steely Dan named their group after the name of a dildo in Naked Lunch!?)
dostoevskyanddebauchery a demandé: I noticed in your bookshelf on the side of your tumblr that you like Infinite Jest and War and Peace. These are two of my favorite books in existence! so refreshing to come upon another who is interested in genuinely great literature. Just wondering, what are your top 10 favorite books?
Hi there! I just wanted to let you know that I haven’t been ignoring you, but rather have been racking my brains over your question. My top ten? That’s a tough one. I can confidently say that Infinite Jest and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time are tied for number 1 (they are the only two books I’ve read that display both an uncanny level of cerebration as well as an all too refreshing fearlessness in attending to the emotionally crushing aspects of daily life [which too many highbrow writers cravenly evade lest they be accused of indulging in sentimentalism!]), but as for the rest, allow me some more time to think it over and expect another message from me soon!
locomotivehootenanny a demandé: Um, so, welcome back. I think. Right? You've been darting on and off this thing, maybe? I am glad you are back. I'm not sure why I am glad, but I really feel like I needed to tell you that I'm over the moon to see you are back. There we go. And with that, now you're going to leave Tumblr again, aren't you?
Sorry for taking so long to respond. I’m so glad that you’re glad at my being back! I think I only wrote one message to you at the time I started following you, but you should know that I’ve continually enjoyed reading your posts since then (I dig your interview of yourself). So, I’m going to try my hardest to really, truly, be “back,” and to post as frequently as I can!
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree…”
—S. T. C.
Indeed, we can’t help but stand in awe before this euphorigenic dome of pleasure; for it is this pleasure dome that wields the power to send us floating tranquilly through a type of transcendental fog, in which the crippling anxieties and fears that torment us during our waking hours, dissolve, immediately and entirely. The dome induces in us a state in which we are so comfortably and blissfully numb—such that nothing seems more in order than for us to bow in reverence before the Papaver Somniferum.
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“I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, ‘the library, and step on it.’”
—DFW, IJ.
If only antipsychotics and mood stabilizers had been available and at the disposition of Count Tolstoy in the days of yore; we’d have no war, only peace; poor Anna might never have felt so inclined to fling herself under that onrushing locomotive; and the sorry Pozdnyshev’s attempt to exonerate himself from the murdering of his wife might have altogether been obviated, along with the wonderfully bizarre tale that is The Kreutzer Sonata, which relates to us the aforenamed gentelman’s lamentable degeneration into delirium.
If your child gets nervous around the doctor, hates swallowing noxious horse pills, but nonetheless grows disquieted when the day is done and the creatures of the night slink out of their digs and into the little one’s bedroom, well, then, why not try cramming some pentobarbital up that kiddie’s caboose, and drive those demonic pests back to their diabolical dwellings.
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GPOYW
During my family’s recent trip to Italy my dad would often berate me for always having my nose stuck in a book, and for depriving myself of the glorious and bucolic scenery that surrounded us. Needless to say I did not pay him much heed, and comforted myself with my firmly held belief that certain settings and environments always provide me with different and unique reading experiences.
As for walking while reading, I don’t plan on abandoning this habit. Yes, I have taken my fair share of spills, but none so bad that I’d dream of subtracting such valuable reading time from my day.
GPWMD
Hanging with my dad. People say we look alike, and that’s cool with me. Though I’m not all that eager for my hair to start falling out (not that my dad’s depilated dome in any way detracts from the projection of his thoroughly urbane and gentlemanly air).
Some enlightening news from Harper’s latest Findings: