Category: words

“We have a rich picture of the beginnings of language, thanks to decades of scientific research with children, infants, and even babies in the womb. But if you wanted to know how language ends in the dying, there’s next to nothing to look up, only firsthand knowledge gained painfully.” — The Atlantic

Jozef Czapski was a Polish officer fighting the Nazis in 1940 when he and his fellows were captured by the Red Army and shipped to a gulag (and thus barely avoiding the Katyn Massacre). To pass the evenings, the officers took turns giving lectures about what they remembered best, and Czapski chose Proust. Here’s why. — The New York Times Book Review

“The dictionary meanings of words are only potentially meaningful until they are actually employed in a context defined by the relation between author and audience. So how did it happen that professors of literature came to renounce authors and their intentions in favor of a way of thinking — or at least a way of talking — that is without historical precedent, has scant philosophical support, and is to most ordinary readers not only counterintuitive but practically incomprehensible?” – Los Angeles Review of Books

The funds are divided into two grants. The first will help start a new fellowship program to support poets laureate of states, cities, United States territories or tribal nations across the country. … The second grant will go toward the Poetry Coalition, a national alliance of more than 20 poetry organizations.” — The New York Times

“Drag queen storytime began popping up in 2015 in San Francisco and have spread across the country to libraries, community centers, and increasingly, bookstores. … Protests are commonplace at the readings and some communities have even seen lawsuits attempting ban such readings, though these efforts have largely been thwarted by the courts.” — Publishers Weekly

“Proust composed by an immensely complex process of writing and rewriting, weaving together passages sometimes composed years apart, filling his margins with additions and, when the margins ran out, continuing on strips of paper glued to the pages.” Carol Clark writes about the challenges of editing and translating The Prisoner, one of three volumes the author didn’t live to see through publication himself. — Literary Hub

Given the scope of the looting, the task ahead remains mountainous. In Berlin, for example, at the Central and Regional Library, almost a third of the 3.5 million books are suspected to have been looted by the Nazis, according to Sebastian Finsterwalder, a provenance researcher there. “Most major German libraries have books stolen by the Nazis,” he said. – The New York Times

Sans Forgetica is purposefully hard to decipher, forcing the reader to focus. One study found that students recalled 57 percent of what they read in Sans Forgetica, compared with 50 percent of the material in Arial, a significant difference. No word yet on the retention rate of Comic Sans. – Wired

Here’s the rub: Monitors pay closer attention to material that might be consumed by the average person than to cultural products seen as highbrow and intended for educated groups. (An internet forum versus an old novel.) As a result, Chinese writers are watched more closely than foreign ones. — The Atlantic

Whether or not most lit professors agree with that (Roland Barthes) statement now, “authors certainly had it coming.” – Los Angeles Review of Books