Todd Shimoda's Writer's Blog
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Jonathan Lethem: Writing at the margins
July 12, 2010 Jonathan Lethem, one of my favorite authors, writes about his days working in some of my favorite bookstores in the Berkeley area. I particularly like his thoughts about writing at the "margins": "It was at Moe’s, in that huge literature section, that I was constantly discovering all these forgotten authors that I ended up being powerfully influenced by. Just handling this ocean of different books—new and used, in and out of print, famous and forgotten—it was literature as this giant mosaic of texts and experiments and attitudes. I think it’s just very liberating to break out of a great man’s theory of history. "I guess I’ve always liked working from that sense of—what would you call it?—license that the margins permit. I always just visualize myself writing books that were meant one day to be dusty, forgotten volumes being encountered by intrepid browsers in a used bookstore. It was a much less freighted way to think about trying to enter the conversation than to imagine I had to write The Great Gatsby." To read more >> © 2010 |
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ARCHIVE
date (comments)
Jonathan Lethem: Writing at the margins July 12, 2010 (0) Review: Love in Translation June 22, 2010 (3) Jose Saramago June 18, 2010 (0) Marketplace of Ideas interview June 11, 2010 (2) Imagining Memory May 6, 2010 (1) Upcoming Los Angeles events April 7, 2010 (2) Time and energy March 30, 2010 (2) Review: Botchan February 28, 2010 (2) J.D. Salinger January 28, 2010 (1) 2009 Reviewed December 31, 2009 (5) Review: The Word Book December 12, 2009 (1) Chaat and Chat event with OH! November 6, 2009 (2) Home at last November 2, 2009 (2) Los Angeles events October 17, 2009 (1) Poets and poetry October 7, 2009 (1) Time + place September 24, 2009 (1) The future of books September 23, 2009 (1) October book tour September 6, 2009 (1) Blogging at Powell's Books August 28, 2009 (2) The evolution of an idea August 3, 2009 (1) The Poetics of Motoori Norinaga: A Hermeneutical Journey July 9, 2009 (2) Tour debrief July 2, 2009 (3) Book tour events May 18, 2009 (3) Simply in the mood April 24, 2009 (2) Book tour April 8, 2009 (6) The Necessary Book March 2, 2009 (2) "Murder Makes the Magazine" February 7, 2009 (3) John Updike January 27, 2009 (2) 2008 misc. (good news, bad news) January 1, 2009 (3) Publishing woes and query letters December 13, 2008 (4) Punctuation compunction November 16, 2008 (3) The Fountain of Youth (and other Ideas) October 10, 2008 (2) David Foster Wallace September 14, 2008 (2) Ending it all September 12, 2008 (2) The mystery of plotting, the plotting of mysteries August 29, 2008 (3) Blocking out the block August 20, 2008 (3) "What kind of books do you write?" August 8, 2008 (2) Theory of Satisfaction: Part 4 July 21, 2008 (3) Show and tell July 14, 2008 (3) Theory of Satisfaction: Part 3 July 7, 2008 (7) Advice for first-time writers (Barry Gifford and me) June 30, 2008 (6) Theory of Satisfaction: Part 2 June 18, 2008 (3) To be or not to be June 10, 2008 (6) Theory of Satisfaction: Part 1 June 3, 2008 (6) Virtual unreality May 31, 2008 (4) The purpose of this blog May 21, 2008 (5) |