Robin Becker is a take-no-prisoners sort of writer. She’s unafraid of zombies, and even if I thought her original subtitle…
Dante 2020-3: Cleansing as Carnival, Tree as Anchor.
Twice in recent days, I’ve posted stages in a developing idea about Dante’s Divine Comedy. The work is coming up…
Tiny Shocks: Uncovering the Reductive Plot of James Wood’s How Fiction Works
[Update: As if this post weren’t long enough, there’s now a Part 2.] On January 22, I read Shya Scanlon’s…
Cover your tracks
I’m (still) reading How Fiction Works, by James Wood. The entire book is built around a concept he calls “free…
Dmitri Nabokov 1, Dying Wish 0
Vladimir Nabokov made his wife promise to burn his unfinished last novel, The Original of Laura, upon his death. But…