| Description |
xiii, 239 pages ; 22 cm |
| Series |
New York Review Books Collections |
|
New York Review Books collection.
|
| Summary |
"Why do we need fiction? Why do books need to be printed on paper, copyrighted, read to the finish? Why should a group of aging Swedish men determine what "world" literature is best? Do books change anything? Did they use to? Do we read to challenge our vision of the world or to confirm it? Has novel writing turned into a job like any other? In Where I'm Reading From, the internationally acclaimed novelist and critic Tim Parks ranges over a lifetime of critical reading--from Leopardi, Dickens and Chekhov, to Woolf, Lawrence and Bernhard, and on to contemporary work by Jonathan Franzen, Peter Stamm, and many others--to overturn many of our long-held assumptions about literature and its purpose. Taking the form of thirty-eight interlocking essays, Where I'm Reading From examines the rise of the "global" novel and the disappearance of literary styles that do not travel; the changing vocation of the writer today; the increasingly paradoxical effects of translation; the shifting expectations we bring to fiction; the growing stasis of literary criticism; and the problematic relationship between writers' lives and their work. In the end Parks wonders whether writers--and readers--can escape the twin pressures of the new global system and the novel that has become its emblematic genre. "-- Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
I: The world around the book. Do we need stories? -- Why finish books? -- E-books are for grown-ups -- Does copyright matter? -- The dull new global novel -- Reading it wrong -- Why readers disagree -- Where i'm reading from -- II: The book in the world. What's wrong with the Nobel? -- A game without rules -- Most favored nations -- Writing adrift in the world -- Art that stays home -- Writing without style -- Literature and bureaucracy -- In the chloroformed sanctuary -- Writers into saints -- III: The writer's world. The writer's job -- Writing to win -- Does money make us write better? -- Fear and courage -- To tell and not to tell -- Stupid questions -- The chattering mind -- Trapped inside the novel -- Changing our stories -- Writing to death -- IV: Writing across worlds. "Are you the Tim Parks who...?" -- Ugly Americans abroad -- Your English is showing -- Learning to speak American -- In praise of the language police -- Translating in the dark -- Listening for the jabberwock -- In the wilds of leopardi -- Echoes from the gloom -- My novel, their culture. |
| Subject |
Books and reading.
|
|
Fiction.
|
|
Authorship.
|
|
LITERARY CRITICISM / Books & Reading.
|
|
LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory.
|
|
LITERARY CRITICISM / General.
|
| Other Form: |
Online version: Parks, Tim. Where I'm reading from New York : New York Review Books, [2015] 9781590178850 (DLC) 2014046215 |
| ISBN |
9781590178843 hardback |
|
159017884X hardback |
|
