Monday, April 21, 2008

Young authors embrace the thought process
Leading a contemplative literary life isn't dead even in these hectic times, and here are three lively examples.

By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK -- Is it possible to lead a dedicated literary life in the billionaire-filled, media-crazed New York of today? To be heedless of the material world as you burrow into novels and ideas the way the old Partisan Review gang did in the '40s and '50s, to come up with notions that rock the intellectual landscape? And if so, who exactly is still paying attention?
Those are questions three reasonably young men are asking now in much-awaited first novels that emerge over the next few weeks.
Each novelist takes a very different position toward rendering literary life in a city where bohemian writers have been forced out by hedge-fund guys. And each co-edits a journal that is proud, almost defiant about its print status -- in a nation where the image has been replacing the word for at least half a century now, and even some well-funded publications are in free-fall.

For the full story from the LA Times go here.........

No comments: