“It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice for everyone except Parisians.” -Muriel Spark
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Category: Literary
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Colm Toibin At Work
Love this photo of the Irish Novelist Colm Toibin at work. This is indeed the desk of a working writer.
A New Directions edition.
Had the good fortune of finding the novel A Far Cry From Kensington by the British novelist Muriel Spark this past weekend. I have had Memento Mori on my shelf for some time, but have not gotten around to reading it.
This New Directions edition was just $1 at Book-Off, which is a Japanese-based used book store with all sorts of English-language gems inside.
I have begun reading A Far Cry and see why Spark has such a stellar reputation–she is a masterful writer.
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New Documentary on Walker Percy
It’s excellent news to learn that novelist Walker Percy may be getting more attention with the upcoming documentary Walker Percy: A Documentary Film. A man of the South and a Roman Catholic, his books tackle the big moral and spiritual questions that modern novelists, regrettably, have long since abandoned.
It’s interesting how often his novel The Moviegoer, which won the National Book Award in 1962, is mentioned as a beloved book by writer of all stripes. I recently heard an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz who cited the book as a special influence on him as a teenager. “I think it was the first time I read something that provoked in me a level of emotion that painting did,” He said. “I loved Percy’s passion for philosophical insight and his lyrical, ever-spiraling ideas.”
Of his own work, Percy said he was looking for:
A theory of man, man as more than organism, more than consumer––man the wayfarer, man the pilgrim, man in transit, on a journey.
The film will appear on PBS next month. Watch a preview: