The Foxed Page

NEVER READ IT? NO PROBMLEM! NO READING REQUIRED! I READ THE (very short) STORY TO YOU!

Clearly I'm caught up in the frenzy surrounding Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY. I've only seen the trailer, but ARGOS (Odysseus's dog) appears not once but TWICE in about two minutes.

I could NOT stop thinking about Joy Williams's incredible short story about our hero's best friend.

Forty-five minutes from now, you could feel smarter, more informed about the movie, and maybe a little better ABOUT DEATH. Williams is amazing: in three mere pages, she takes us well beyond The Odyssey into the kind of land only Williams can create. Nolan seems to be doing well with the source material. Williams's ultra-brief interpretation is a masterpiece.

Honestly? I was sucked in by the covers of these slim volumes. When I saw we were about to get very groundhog-day, I wasn't so sure. After taking a close look at the title, the opening, the microcosm of marriage, the incredible figurative language and the novella's FAITH IN THE POWER OF WRITING, I'm feeling ready to dive into book two!

This novella--an excerpt of THE PALE KING--was a revelation. Just as its publisher Sarah McNally says in the preface, Wallace's cult-status fame as a challenging writer can be daunting, and his oeuvre is so large, it's hard to know where to begin. This is where to begin!

The lecture is probably best heard if you've read The Pale King (and/or this amazing section itself) but I like to think lovers of DFW will get lots out of this even if you haven't read him in years.

It was SO GOOD to return to this work: his later, more grounded, warmer, incredibly moving work. In this case, about tax law and radical tedium. Doesn't get better than that.

I loved The Perfect Couple. I even loved the UNperfect parts.

Part of the reason there's a second tv series is because Hilderbrand is so good at what she does. Listen in to fully appreciate this juicy, splashy series!

(And if you're someone who turns up her nose at Hilderbrand, but you want a frothy beach read, listen in to hear why her work is much better than you think!)

When I came across a new short story by Ben Lerner, an audio version of the story read by Lerner, an interview with Lerner about the short story AND a nonfiction piece by Lerner related to the story, I felt like I'd entered a very Lernerian world.

Tune in for a quick ten minutes that will convince you to hunt down out "The Readers." Not only is this the very best prose, but the pieces also combine to provide a fat PRIZE at the end of that hunt. NO READING NECESSARY!