Last year I wrote an essay in 3 Quarks Daily trying to clarify my thoughts on “the total novel” or what I’ve started calling “the everything novel.” This is the land of Joyce, Gaddis, Musil and other giants. I took the essay, entirely reworked the middle and the ending, and recorded it for the Feeling Bookish Podcast as part of our “Audio Essay” series. Take a listen:
It’s a massive book, it’s nearly 50-years-old, but it has been republished by the New York Review of Books press, and some critics are calling it a masterpiece.
I took a less enthusiastic view. You can check out my essay on Anniversaries and my attempt to define the “everything novel” in 3 Quarks Daily, as well as listen to the discussion I had about it on a recent Feeling Bookish Podcast: