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Teju Cole

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Was ‘The Great Gatsby’ The Last Great New York Novel?

By Geoff Mak on

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby stands out as the finest of his four completed novels because it’s an empathetic satire that delivers the author’s most aggressive attack on New York’s high society. I’ve read it maybe five times, although I prefer the first half because I think that’s where the magic happens. It’s when all three of the novel’s parties take place, and where Fitzgerald’s psychological complexity thrives most — the simultaneous worship and disdain for wealth and celebrity that characterizes his body of work. It’s often praised as a top contender for the Great American Novel, but Gatsby also remains as the best New York novel I’ve ever read because it so fully embodies the city in the time during which it was written, while continuing to speak to readers (and especially New Yorkers) of every generation. … Read More

Books

The Flâneur in Fiction: Great Books About Wandering the City

By Chloe Pantazi on

Earlier this week, in a piece I wrote about Jean Rhys at the Paris Review, I imagined walking with the author through Cambridge, London, Paris, and New York. In Rhys’ metropolitan novels – Quartet (1928), After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1930), Voyage in the Dark (1934), and Good Morning, Midnight (1939) – writing and walking become confluent activities. But her fiction arrives in a long tradition of flâneur writing. Baudelaire once defined the flâneur as “lounger or saunterer, an idle ‘man about town.’” Walter Benjamin’s writing on the arcades of Paris reads like a blueprint. Woolf haunted the streets of London by night, as did Dickens before her. Even Freud got stuck in the city, as walking in Rome invoked an “uncanny” experience, thus informing the polemic for which the father of psychoanalysis is most famous. These authors inspired us to compile a list of our favorite writing on wandering. Saunterers, loungers, and loafers: don’t forget to comment with your favorite walking stories. … Read More

Books

Contemporary Authors as Adjectives

By Emily Temple on

Today marks the release of George Orwell’s Diaries, the influential writer’s personal writings from the years 1931 to 1949, published for the first time in the United States. Orwell is one of those writers who is so infused in our collective imagination and culture that his name has become its own adjective: “Orwellian” is used to describe a totalitarian government or situation similar to the one in 1984. Like Kafka, whose “Kafkaesque,” has come to mean not only “like Kafka’s writing” but also the more disconnected “marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity,” Orwell’s namesake will probably continue to evolve, becoming a term one understands even without reading a word of his writing. But what about more modern writers? After the jump, we’ve speculated on a few (tongue-in-cheek, mind you) definitions for the adjective-ized versions of contemporary authors — sure, some of their names don’t exactly lend themselves to common adjectival endings, but that’s okay. The English language is ever evolving. And in that spirit, we challenge you to play our game and make up your own in the comments! … Read More

Books

The Future of American Fiction: An Interview with Rajesh Parameswaran

By Geoff Mak on

If you haven’t noticed, we spend a lot of time thinking about literature here in the Flavorpill offices, digging through its past, weighing its current state, and imagining its future. Take a look at our bookshelves and you’ll find us reading everything from Nobel Prize winners to age-old classics to paperbacks printed at the bookstore down the street. Call it Chick-Lit, Hysterical Realism, Ethnic-Lit, or Translit — if it’s good fiction, we’ll be talking about it. So this summer, we launched The Future of American Fiction: an interview series expanding on that endless conversation about books we love, and yes, the direction of American fiction, from the people who’d know. Every Tuesday through the end of August, we’ll bring you a short interview with one of the writers we think is instrumental in defining that direction. … Read More

Books

Contemporary Writers and Their Old School Counterparts

By Emily Temple on

This week, we read an article over at The Guardian which suggested that the “anxiety of influence” is waning — that is, that writers publishing today are no longer as closely influenced by the literary canon as they once were, and instead look to their contemporaries. Well, considering that this conclusion was the result of a mathematical study based on the number of “content-free” words like ‘of’, ‘at’ and ‘by,’ we’re not sure how much water it holds, but it inspired us to think about some modern writers who do seem to be carrying the torch for their old school counterparts, whether in topic, thematic style, or character. After all, the past never really goes away — especially in… Read More

Books

10 Books to Fuel Your Springtime Wanderlust

By Emily Temple on

We don’t know about you, but as the weather gets nicer, we here at Flavorpill find ourselves staring out of our windows, peering longingly at the world beyond, wishing for a little adventure and travel. Yes, that annual springtime wanderlust is hitting, and it’s hitting hard. But since we have jobs and responsibilities and things, we have to tide ourselves over until we can escape to the country — or at least a far-off park with some good climbing trees. Thus, we have created this list of wanderlust-inspiring books, to read on a plane, on a train, or just in your bedroom with dreams of exploration. Click through to read our picks, and let us know which books make you want to set out on your own in the comments. … Read More

Books

Paris, I Love You: 10 Books Starring Cities

By Emily Temple on

Today marks the release of Rosecrans Baldwin’s sophomore effort Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, a memoir about moving to his favorite city in the world. As might be expected, the City of Light itself plays as much of a role as any other character Baldwin encounters — we’d almost consider it to be a book with two main characters: Baldwin and Paris. We’re always interested in the ways real cities blend into fiction and take on lives of their own, so we came up with a list of a few other books starring metropolises around the world. Click through to check out ten books in which the cities characters inhabit become characters in themselves, and let us know if we missed any of your favorites in the comments. … Read More

Books

Teju Cole on Kony 2012 and the White Savior Industrial Complex

By Emily Temple on

Two weeks ago, novelist Teju Cole tweeted a series of responses to the now ubiquitous Kony2012 video, writing that “the white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening,” and “the world exists simply to satisfy the needs — including, importantly, the sentimental needs… Read More

Books

The New York Public Library’s 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists Announced

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday, the New York Public library’s Young Lions Fiction Award announced their 2012 finalists, and we must say, they’ve come up with quite a list. The award, which celebrates “the works of young authors carving deep impressions in the literary world,” is given annually to a young American author — aged 35 or younger… Read More

Books

Teju Cole Wins This Year’s Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

By Caroline Stanley on

It has been such a big day for book awards news! Earlier today we told you that the longlist for this year’s Orange Prize had been announced. Now we find out that US-born, Nigeria-raised, and Brooklyn-based author Teju Cole has won the $100,000 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for his fantastic novel Open City, which… Read More