Cold Little Bird, Inept Big Birds

Ben Marcus had a good idea for his story, “Cold Little Bird,” that appeared in the Oct. 19, 2015 edition of The New Yorker: the power a child can come to have over his or her parents, perhaps earlier in life than expected.

Rather than the more typical teenage rebel, Marcus paints a picture of a 10-year old boy who recoils from the need his parents, but particularly his father, feel for frequent physical contact.

What Makes a Work of Fiction a Classic?

As readers know, I tend to use the weekly “Bookends” feature of the Sunday New York Times book review section as fodder for this blog. The way the feature works is as follows: the editor poses a question and then two of various regular participants attempt to answer it, sometimes with opposing views, but often with just different slants.

This Sunday (Oct. 18, 2015), the question (slightly different online than in the print edition) was: “When we declare something a ‘classic’ we emphasize timelessness. But shouldn’t art speak to something current?”

Hand-Wringers, Conversation and the Future of Fiction

In a recent post, I wondered whether contemporary digital culture, and the short attention spans that seem to go with it, are a threat to serious fiction.  That, in the view of novelist Jonathan Franzen, puts me in the category of “literary hand-wringers.”  Well, all right, maybe just “hand-wringers.”

I came across the category in Franzen’s extensive review of “Reclaiming Conversation,” a new book by MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who is described as having close ties with the world of technology and thus launches her latest critique of the tech world’s impact on society with more credibility than might otherwise be the case.

"Slush Piles" and Self-Publishing

The Oct. 11, 2015, “Bookends” feature of the Sunday New York Times poses the question: “How does the reputation of an author shape your response to a book?”

The word “your” in that question refers to readers, but I think the same question can be asked of publishers and the response of one of the two commentators provides an answer as to why some authors, me included, decide to self-publish.