Closing tabs

John Jeremiah Sullivan tires of his voice.  (Via Elif Batuman.)

Anthony Sampson's archive: the corridors of power....  (Courtesy of I.H.D.)

I went to the memorial service for my friend Carey yesterday and am still feeling discombobulated, with a very busy week ahead.  Haven't had much time for light reading, but did enjoy Seanan McGuire's latest October Daye book (it is very good, she has really upped her game with each entry into the series) and also devoured, helplessly, Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels (you can get the quartet in a book or a bundle).

If I can make it through the next week and a half, it's spring break and I get a respite and time to work on novel revisions, but this week is looking mighty daunting!

"Language is a poison"

Jacob Gross interviews Ben Marcus at Harper's (via Blue) on his new book:

... I was exhausted by, or just done with, certain techniques. I kept using the same shovel, digging up the exact same shit. I wanted to change my shovel. Maybe use my hands. Maybe dig up into the air instead of down into the soil. I wondered if my endless return to the same ideas and concepts could maybe be blamed on my regular reliance on the same techniques — the syntax, the tones, the rhetoric. I felt that if I changed those I might be able to uncover a different part of my imagination, maybe some little untouched place the other tools weren’t reaching. A different kind of surgery on whatever place I look to for fiction.