.@ISI pic.twitter.com/IPWcgY4uTs
— Ray Van Neste (@rvannest) October 31, 2015
National Paragraph Writing Month
The Millions is launching a new initiative in coordination with National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo).
We are launching #NaGrafWriMo in recognition of all the writers with jobs and family obligations, and those who just spend an ungodly amount of time on the Internet, who find it hard to read a whole book in a month, much less write one. But we are also embarking on this new program because we have found that, for most writers, it can take more talent, determination, and hard work to write one good paragraph than an entire lousy book.
Here, here to more good paragraphs and fewer lousy books.
‘Quicksilver,’ by Neal Stephenson
Someone suggested Neal Stephenson’s books to me, so I figured I’d give one a try. I decided on his historical series, The Baroque Cycle. The first novel is Quicksilver.
What shall I say about this book?
What I liked: Very well written. Witty. Good, interesting characters. Excellent historical research on view. A grand artistic vision undergirding all (which seems to be to give us a much-needed introduction to the history of the ideas that eventually produced digital computing).
The central character in Quicksilver is Dr. Daniel Waterhouse, a 17th Century Puritan and scientist. As a boy he watched Charles I being executed. As a young man he roomed with Isaac Newton at Cambridge and was involved with the beginnings of the Royal Society. Through him we observe the actions of the scientists who were inventing modern science, as well as the machinations of the court of Charles II.
Then the story takes a detour, and we follow the adventures of Jack Shaftoe, an English adventurer and mercenary, who rescues a beautiful harem slave, Eliza, at the siege of Vienna. Together with her he sets off on a journey across the German principalities toward the Netherlands, during which they become acquainted with the mathematician Leibniz.
And then back to London and Dr. Waterhouse. Continue reading ‘Quicksilver,’ by Neal Stephenson
The Reformation: Here to stay
This morning, in an e-mail discussion I participate in, someone lamented the Reformation. They wished and hoped we could all come together again soon.
That’s a nice dream, and I applaud the sentiment. But in my view it’ll never happen.
Here’s the thing — who’s going to be in charge of this new universal church?
The pope? Then how will you force all the Christians who think the pope is the Antichrist into your church?
Local congregations? How will you persuade the people who think an episcopacy is necessary?
You won’t be able to do this without some kind of coercive force. A new Inquisition.
And I don’t think even Catholics want that.
Besides which, the divisions are far deeper and more complex than just Rome vs. Wittenberg.
The divisions in Christianity go way beyond denominations. I have Catholic friends to whom I am far closer, in the fundamentals, than I am with many of my Lutheran friends.
Even if you somehow shoehorned all the denominations into your new World Church, the conservative vs. liberal divisions would persist.
And would probably, if history is any guide, lead to new institutional divisions.
Green Book for Jim-Crow Era Travelers
There was a time when black businessmen and their families could not travel freely throughout the states. There were sundown towns, where blacks needed to leave before sunset to avoid trouble. There were hotels and restaurants which would not serve them. So a New York City mailman produced a green book to help them travel comfortably.
With the introduction of this travel guide in 1936, it has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable. The Jewish press has long published information about places that are restricted and there are numerous publications that give the gentile whites all kinds of information. But during these long years of discrimination, before 1936 other guides have been published for the Negro, some are still published, but the majority have gone out of business for various reasons. In 1936 the Green Book was only a local publication for Metropolitan New York, the response for copies was so great it was turned into a national issue in 1937 to cover the United States.
ESSO stations were particularly hospitable and distributed the green books to all who asked. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in its 90th year, has digitized its Green Book collection.
We Tell Ghost Stories In Order to Control Our Fears
“One of the primary experiences ghost stories deal with is fear,” Chris Yokel explains. “Many literary critics recognize that the management of fear is one of the important explanations for the existence of the ghost story. Julia Briggs in her book Night Visitors says, ‘Both the recital and reading of stories of the terrific unknown suggests a need to exorcise in controlled circumstances, fear which in solitude or darkness might become unmanageable. By recounting nightmares, giving them speakable shapes and patterns, even if as compulsively as did Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, we hope to control them and come to terms with them.’”
Do we control our fears when we tell stories of indomitable evils, of horrors that cannot be held back, or of despair that literally eats at us? How much do our stories define for us this “terrific unknown”?
Writers on the Internet
Sean Minogue writes about writers using social media for better or for worse.
Unreachability and self-seriousness used to define many of our best-known authors, but the public appetite for writerly swagger in both old and new media is at an all-time low. Jonathan Franzen, for example, continues to spark minor firestorms with his pooh-poohing of Twitter: “I see people who ought to be spending time developing their craft […] making nothing and feeling absolutely coerced into this constant self-promotion,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today program. Franzen is behind the curve, but not because he doesn’t like Twitter. It’s his fundamental misunderstanding of social media that makes his opinions so quaint.
In the end, social media are just other platforms for authors to speak or ignore as they wish.
One of Milton’s Homes Abandoned
The great John Milton lived in Berkyn Manor (known later as the Bull Manor), a house in Horton near Slough, Berkshire, for about three years (1636-1638). He was out of Cambridge, apparently due to a conflict with his tutor, and was living with his parents. He didn’t write his greatest works there. Paradise Lost was published in 1667. He worked on it at his cottage, which is open to literary tourists.
Photographers have drawn attention to the Berkyn Manor by distributing their shots of the dilapidated interior, which has been sitting empty since it’s last owner died in 1987.
Japan, Most Haunted
When Lafcadio Hearn stepped onto the shores of Japan in 1890, he began writing ghost stories. On assignment from Harper’s Magazine, Hearn was charged to explore and explain this undiscovered country to eager Americans. That his answer was to write about Japan’s spirits should have surprised no one; Hearn had a predilection for the macabre and uncanny. But while a previous sojourn in New Orleans had supplied him with ore for his imagination, in his new home he struck the mother lode. Japan is the most haunted country on Earth.
…
Most people know that Japan is particularly good at ghost stories. As they should be; they have been working at it for some time. Theater, literature, art, or film—Japan’s storytelling is inherently haunted. Indeed, a history of Japanese literature is a history of ghost stories.
A Museum of Writers Seeks to Entomb Literary Artiness
For years, American writers have toiled in obscurity, with precious few monuments, commemorative plaques, or wax likenesses devoted to their memory. Well, friend, no more: Chicago is soon to open the first-ever American Writers Museum, where, god willing, the fraught history of our art-form, like so many before it, will be boiled down into propaganda and shoveled merrily down the throats of our youth. And if you’re worried that a museum about words will look too much like a library—perish the thought—allow me to allay your fears: “The museum will focus on using new media and technology in exhibitions, not only to differentiate it from a library, but also to engage in contemporary forms of writing from social media to digital journalism.” That is, not much writing will be featured at the American Writers Museum.
Maybe readers will finally get a good answer to the question of how a writer came up with an idea. Dan Piepenbring has this and many more tidbits on his Paris Review blog today.