Tye Pemberton: The Last Book I loved, Remainder
Tom McCarthy’s Remainder was a bit of a darkhorse darling when it first arrived on the scene, enjoying attention from everyone and their mother, the latter of whom rightly celebrated it and nearly...
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The hero of Tom McCarthy’s new novel moves through a broken world in which technology is both a wonder and a threat.Avant-garde art elicits a range of reactions, but delight is rarely one of them. Even...
View ArticleC
Today, in Book Review, John Wilwol reviews Tom McCarthy’s latest novel, C, recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.Related Posts:Lost in SpaceCTom McCarthy InterviewTandem Reading: J.G. Ballard...
View ArticleTandem Reading: J.G. Ballard and Tom McCarthy’s Remainder
Remainder by Tom McCarthy can only lazily be compared to Kafka or Murakami, Ionesco or Calvino. Really, there is an English dryness about it that is more like Graham Greene having a surrealist fit. Or...
View ArticleLost in Space
Both rhetorically playful and plot driven, Tom McCarthy’s first novel, Men in Space, now out in the U.S., floats in between his other novels Remainder and C.One can never accuse Man Booker...
View ArticleTom McCarthy Interview
Interview Magazine talks with Tom McCarthy about his novels Remainder, C, and Men in Space (which we reviewed today). Additional topics include McCarthy’s “detour through the art world” and founding...
View ArticleDigital Age Changes Writing
Technology has changed the way writers write, and that change is not just about the rise of e-books. Composition in a digital world is much more malleable and fluid, and changes in methodology alter...
View ArticleFor Real
Time and again we hear about a new desire for the real, about a realism which is realistic set against an avant-garde which isn’t, and so on.In his new essay over at the London Review of Books, Tom...
View ArticleThe Rumpus Interview with Peter Mendelsund
You can, if you are so inclined, easily find someone to tell you how design is important because the product is important. There are magazines, blogs, and podcasts dedicated to convincing you that it’s...
View ArticleFacebook and the Avant-garde
…our Franzen problems, these days, are pretty minor. We don’t have to worry that Chip Lambert’s hand-wringing is going to reinforce the old, realist modes of romantic reaction. But we do have to worry...
View ArticleWriting in the Age of Google
If there is an individual alive in 2015 with the genius and vision of James Joyce, they’re probably working for Google, and if there isn’t, it doesn’t matter since the operations of that genius and...
View ArticleWriting Dies Again
For the LA Times, David L. Ulin responds to Tom McCarthy’s Guardian article on “the death of writing.”Related Posts:Satirical AmericaLittle Free Library Battle: 9-Year-Old vs. City CouncilFool Me OnceA...
View ArticleFragility of Antiquity
Adam Flemming Petty writes over on Electric Literature about the literature of ruins:This perception of antiquities as fragile rather than permanent, and all the more affecting for their fragility, is...
View ArticleWhere We Write
For T Magazine, seven authors describe the spaces where they write.Related Posts:Fragility of AntiquityWriting Dies AgainWriting in the Age of GoogleFacebook and the Avant-gardeThe Rumpus Interview...
View ArticleSatin Island by Tom McCarthy
On the cover of Tom McCarthy’s new novel, a number of words appear crossed out. “A manifesto,” “an essay,” “a report,” “a confession,” and “a treatise” are all struck through, leaving only the words “a...
View ArticleRewrite, Reboot, Remix
I suspect that everyone is always rewriting something or other, whether they are self-conscious about it or operating intuitively. It’s probably endemic to the literary impulse to wish to transform the...
View ArticleNarrowly Avoiding the Spotlight
Late on this year’s Oscar Sunday, the award ceremony concluded with the Academy getting something right: Spotlight was awarded Best Picture. Spotlight is well-acted across the board and its story (for...
View ArticleNotable NYC: 5/6–5/12
Saturday 5/6: Jennifer E. Smith presents Windfall. McNally Jackson Books, 6 p.m., free. Carmen Giménez Smith and Aldrin Valdez join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Philip Schultz, Lisa...
View ArticleNotable Online: 11/29–12/5
Monday 11/30: Tauno Biltsted, Anca L. Szilágyi, and Kris Waldherr discuss Politics of Then and Now in Historical Fiction. Greenlight Bookstore via Zoom, 7:30 p.m. EST, free. Matvei Yankelevich, John...
View ArticleAn Elaborately Constructed Artifice: Maxwell’s Demon by Steven Hall
Steven Hall’s first novel, The Raw Shark Texts, falls into a fuzzily defined genre known as slipstream. This term, coined by sci-fi author Bruce Sterling in 1989, never really caught on partly because...
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