“Good books are stunning charges of vital energy” —Elena Ferrante
Who you read—and pay to read—is a budding social signal, a way to broadcast sophistication and align you with a niche intellectual tribe.
Substack’s promise is that the best writing will rise to the top. But, in reality, the best writers—on Substack or anywhere else—aren’t just creators of content; they’re mirrors for aspiration, revealing something... See more
Substack’s promise is that the best writing will rise to the top. But, in reality, the best writers—on Substack or anywhere else—aren’t just creators of content; they’re mirrors for aspiration, revealing something... See more
Anu Atluru • Thoughts For Sale
As Tomalin emphasizes, it was Austen’s ability to “abstract herself from the daily life going on around her” that allowed her to find her literary voice.
Cal Newport • Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
Why does the autofictional novel still dominate the database novel? One clear answer is that the former has the aura of celebrity, as well as its associated false intimacy. However, as we’ve learned, the latter has its own rhizomatic logic, one that scoffs at false binaries; of fascicular tyranny. It’s clear that the database novel can function wit... See more
Conor Truax • Against Autofiction: Two Paths for the Internet Novel | Spike Art Magazine
Elena Ferrante writes primarily about women, focusing on the small details of their lives, their relationships with each other, their friendships, and, particularly, their maternal relationships—examining both the mother's and the daughter's perspectives. She explores the hidden violences in society and repression, but her novels are also filled wi
A few years ago, there was a panic over the rise of the “internet novel,” in which the “reference novel” finds tradition. Web 2.0–informed writing “is dystopic in its moral vision,” author and frequent tweeter Brandon Taylor wrote in a “Substack post.” “‘Internet novels’ have succeeded too entirely, which is to say that they are too exactly like be... See more
Greta Rainbow • IYKYK: When Novels Speak a Language Only Part of the Internet Gets | The Walrus
morally passionate, passionately moral fiction was also ingenious and radiantly human fiction.”