Blotting paper

An idea exists that a purpose — a, not the — of literature is to render the the familiar strange and the strange familiar. This idea is perhaps as old as old, but it is definitely noticeable in twentieth and twenty-first century writing, in movements such as surrealism and (more complexly) magic realism, and in genres like science fiction and fantasy.

This is also how the poetic image usually works. If Stevens says that he was of three minds ‘Like a tree/In which there are three blackbirds’ then the tree and the birds with it turn (strangely) into a part of your psychology and then it becomes normal and the next time someone says a tree is something else and you agree, it’s very strange.

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There are many ways in which to engage with the strange. There are good ways and bad ways. » Read the rest of this entry «

• Super-Cannes, JG Ballard, 2000 , English (UK) (novel)
• Little Birds, Anaïs Nin, 1979, English (US) (short story collection)
• Peter and Wendy, JM Barrie, 1911, English (UK) (novel) » Read the rest of this entry «

Pallavi suggested I write about my political beliefs and I thought why not? » Read the rest of this entry «

A feminist asks where all the other feminists were (planning a boobquake?) (via River Slant)

The three events were started in response to an Iranian cleric’s proclamations about women’s immodesty and promiscuity causing earthquakes, and have subsequently been supported by members of such prominent feminist sites as Feministing.com, Jezebel.com, and Feministe.com. I was initially intrigued by the idea as a sort of campy and playful way to collectively disprove an idea, but » Read the rest of this entry «

I really want to be angry about this poem. Like raving mad. Screaming, ‘Is this what you think of my country?’ But like Neha (hat tip for tweeting this), who described it as ‘odd and off-putting,’ I find the whole thing very weird.

Firstly, let’s get over the being offended part. It’s a waste of time and we’d be killing a lot of trees to manufacture all the tissue we’d need to dry up our silly, pathetic tears. » Read the rest of this entry «

Naomi Klein on Bush, the ‘hollowing’ out of politics and the Obama brand

Just as companies such as Nike and Microsoft had pioneered the hollow corporation, this was, in many ways, a hollow war. And when one of the contractors screwed up — Blackwater operatives opening fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, for instance, leaving 17 people dead, or Halliburton allegedly supplying contaminated water to soldiers — the Bush administration was free to deny responsibility. » Read the rest of this entry «

Bernard Schlink‘s novel The Reader is, in my opinion, superior to Stephen Daldry‘s film based on it. I credit the movie for having pushed me to read the book, and also for being a decent two-hour watch. I’ve been interested in Daldry’s work ever since I saw Billy Eliot, and this is in no way comparable, but it certainly isn’t bad — especially in relation to its batch of Oscar-nominated films. » Read the rest of this entry «