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Times
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Rachel Kushner: Flaubert is hilarious, cynical and cruel
Rachel Kushner, 56, grew up in Oregon, then San Francisco. After completing a master's in creative writing at Columbia University, she worked as an editor on arts magazines in New York. After she moved to Los Angeles, she started writing fiction. Her debut, Telex from Cuba, was published in 2008. This was followed by The Flamethrowers (2013), The Mars Room (2018), which won the Prix Médicis étranger, and The Hard Crowd (2021), a collection of essays. Her latest novel, Creation Lake, an ambitious and entertaining tale about French eco-activists, a Neanderthal-admiring reclusive thinker and a macho, semi-alcoholic female spy-for-hire with expensive fake breasts, was shortlisted for last year's Booker prize. 'Creation Lake is a smart, funny novel that dares to contemplate the void of uncertainty where we all stand,' was our critic's verdict. Kushner rides motorbikes and is a fan of drag racing. • Read more book reviews and interviews — and see what's top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers List On any given day I might answer this differently because I don't, of course, have just one. That would be so narrow. But today my answer is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. While that's quite guessable and unimaginative as a favourite, given it's considered the most successful novel of all time and the one that cemented the form of this peculiar and incredible genre of art, it's also strong, a strong choice. Do you recall that the first chapter is written in the first-person plural, that there is a 'we' ridiculing young Charles for his bizarre rabbit-fur hat and his rube's demeanour at school, a voice that is presumably a collection of Charles's classmates? We don't meet this 'we' — they are not characters with their own desires and ideas — and instead are mere witnesses to Charles's early failures at sophistication. Although technically the point of view is omniscient, we are mostly thereafter in the thoughts of Emma, a woman who is not satisfied by the life she has acquired and whose desire for worldliness, and her consequent debt, bring her to the bleakest of ends. Flaubert is hilarious, cynical and cruel and also passionate, romantic and ravished. That contradiction perhaps is the heart of this novel's chimerical power. • Colm Tóibín: a writer's last work has a special intensity I am too undecided to choose a single favourite living author but if we narrow it to recent novels by younger writers, I'd like to talk about Emma Cline and The Guest and why I admire that novel about a young woman lying, stealing and grifting among wealthy New Yorkers. The Guest is deliberately structured to pull off the unlikely feat of maintaining the propulsion of a short story for the length of a novel, at which it succeeds. Also, there's a quality to the sentences, as in all of Cline's work, of sensitivity, agility and control. I read her and go: 'Yes, that's exactly right but I never knew that thing could be put into language.' What's odd is I am not the least bit interested in the world of extreme wealth, and part of why The Guest was such a hit was its setting in the Hamptons, where Alex, the narrator, is set loose as a grifter. It's Alex who interests me and whose misconception — that if she can only conform herself to other people's fantasies her problems will be solved — I find so moving. I'm not sure if I'd call this book underrated as much as simply less well known. Its author certainly has the critical reputation he deserves, but Alberto Moravia's Agostino (1944), a novella, really, is the best book I've read about a boy on the cusp of puberty. Agostino is with his mother on summer vacation at the beach and suddenly he can't tolerate being close to her. The world is changing to him because he is changing, and the way that Moravia renders his attitude and the choices he makes perfectly encapsulates what feels so treacherous in adolescence. It's a time in life when a person rejects safety, comfort and guidance, and subjects themselves to the world unchaperoned, to other people who don't care about them, who might humiliate or hurt them. And yet this is what a young person wants — to go out and get banged up by life, instead of stay home and be smothered by safety. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Vintage £9.99 pp416). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mission Creek 2025 is more than music. Check out these must-see literary events in Iowa City
Mission Creek Festival returns to Iowa City this weekend (April 3-5), offering much more than music. The event also transforms Iowa City into a hub for the literary arts from authors, publishers, and editors. Here is a look at all the literary events through Saturday, including free activities that don't require a festival pass. More: Music on the mind: Here are the must-see acts at the 2025 Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City Thursday: Rachel Kushner will open the slate of literary events on the festival's first night at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 3, at Hancher Auditorium. She'll be joined by one of the music headliners, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, to discuss writing and culture. Kushner is the author of award-winning novels like 'The Flamethrowers,' 'Telex from Cuba,' and her most recent release, 'Creation Lake.' More: Reflect with the Mission Creek Festival's founders as they prepare for year 20 this weekend Friday: The annual Mission Creek Festival Lit Walk returns with several rounds of literary speakers. Embark on a journey through the heart of downtown on Friday, where familiar Iowa City hotspots transform into vibrant stages for a diverse array of voices and stories. The first two rounds of the Lit Walk will be held at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. at Revival and Willow & Stock. The final round begins at 7:30 p.m. at Prairie Lights. An after-party will be held at 8:30 p.m. at The Greenhouse. All three rounds of the Lit Walk are free and open to the public. More: Six spring events to check out in Iowa City this weekend from free events to plays Saturday: Little Engines' 'Morning, F----rs' is a traveling reading series and is similar to the Lit Walk, but for early risers. It will be held at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday at The Tuesday Agency in The Chauncey Building. Readers include Adam Voith, Avery Gregurich, Kyle Seibel, Julián Martinez, Kevin Allardice, Kat Hirsch, Warren C. Longmire, and Mike Nagel. The event is free and open to the public with coffee and donuts. More: ACLU dismisses case from trans Iowa City parent one day after AG Bird sought to intervene Saturday: The Iowa City Expo for Comics and Real Eclectic Alternative Media Zine Fair, or I.C.E. C.R.E.A.M., returns for its eighth year on Saturday. This free event will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Public Space One, located at 538 S. Gilbert St. The Zine fair highlights the work of local cartoonists, zinesters, and handmade book artists who strive to keep the print medium alive. Saturday: The Small Press and Literary Magazine Book Fair highlights a few local and national presses as well as literary magazines. The 2025 fair will be held Saturday at SpareMe Bowl & Arcade in the Chauncey Building. The fair features dozens of celebrated publications, including Featherproof Books, The Iowa Review, Cleveland Review of Books, and more. The book fair is free and open to the public from noon to 4 p.m. More: New Johnson County Solar Task Force aims for 10% of homes to use solar power by 2035 Saturday: Hosted at FilmScene's Chauncey location in theater 3, 'Literary Translation: Magic, Conversation, and the Art of Community' will feature a literary panel of Will Evans, Bela Shayevich, and Gary Lovely. The speakers will discuss 'the magic and art of translation in literary publishing.' Will Evans is a publisher and translator and founded Deep Vellum Publishing in 2013, 'a nonprofit indie book publisher dedicated to translating the world's best novels into English for American audiences.' Bela Shayevich is a Soviet-American writer and translator, best known for her translation of 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich's 'Secondhand Time.' The doors for the free event will open at 12:30 p.m., and the panel discussion will begin at 1 p.m. More: Apartments, retail and a bank: What's in store for North Liberty's $100M development? Saturday: Srikanth Reddy will join Donika Kelly for a free discussion at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 5, at FilmScene's Chauncey location. Reddy is a poet and professor at the University of Chicago, teaching parody, obscenity, and literary publishing courses. Kelly is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Iowa and the author of 'The Renunciations,' winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry. Saturday: University of Iowa alum Torrey Peters will read from her new book 'Stag Dance,' at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Prairie Lights. Peters will also be joined by University of Iowa nonfiction writing program student, Jenny Singer for a conversation. The reading and conversation are both free. More: Spring into Iowa City's busiest concert season with these 8 can't-miss shows Saturday: Neko Case will close out the slate of Mission Creek literary events at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the University of Iowa's Voxman School of Music. Case headlined last year's Mission Creek Festival and has returned to read from her new memoir, "The Harder I Fight the More I Love You," a 'rebellious meditation on identity and corruption.' The ensuing conversation will be moderated by Melissa Febos, a University of Iowa English professor. Jessica Rish is an entertainment, dining and education reporter for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She can be reached at JRish@ or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rishjessica_ This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: What literary events are set for the 2025 Mission Creek Festival?
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Place of Politics in Fiction
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors' weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. Novelists are an opinionated lot. They often say things, write essays, and sign petitions reflecting political positions that many of their biggest fans might not like. One of the best things about fiction is that it can convey higher (or at least more complicated) truths than even the author knows. A reader doesn't have to sign on to V. S. Naipaul's sometimes odious beliefs about postcolonial societies to take pleasure in his language and characters, or support a boycott of Israel, as Rachel Kushner publicly has, to find in her novel Creation Lake a nuanced but withering portrayal of both extractive capitalists and callow activists. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie self-consciously embodies this split between the novelist and polemicist. Her new novel, Dream Count, is her first in a dozen years—a period during which she wrote and spoke frequently about feminism, grief, and political dogmas. In a conversation this week with the Atlantic staff writer Gal Beckerman, Adichie explained how her novel departs from her beliefs, and why that's a good thing. She also made clear that compartmentalizing her ideas of 'what the world should be' is not as easy as it might seem. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic's Books Section: Chimamanda Adichie's fiction has shed its optimism Why the Trump administration canceled me The unlikely friendship behind an Oscar favorite 'Amphigory': A poem by David Eileen Both Beckerman and Tyler Austin Harper, who also wrote about Dream Count this week, cite an offhand, possibly facetious statement that Adichie made in 2016: 'We women should spend about 20 percent of our time on men, because it's fun, but otherwise we should be talking about other stuff.' Why, in defiance of this feminist assertion, are men so prominent in her new book, they wonder? Because 'I don't want to write about women's lives as I wish they were,' she told Beckerman. Instead, the novel tries to imagine actual women interacting with actual men. In fact, Adichie has strong opinions on the question of politics in fiction; as she told Beckerman, she believes that many writers are prone to 'ideological conformity,' which can hobble their work. Perhaps she'd support this modest proposal: Fiction should spend about 20 percent of its time imagining the world as the author would like it to be. But that's easier said than done. We don't live in a time when politics can be cordoned off from art; it permeates the world, and a novel without much of it would be difficult to believe. In an author's note at the end of the book, Adichie confirms that the story of her character Kadiatou bears a close resemblance to the 2011 case of Nafissatou Diallo, the Guinean immigrant who alleged that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, assaulted her in a New York City hotel suite. (All criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn were dismissed; he settled Diallo's civil suit against him for an undisclosed sum.) Adichie told Beckerman that she had struggled 'to write honestly' about Kadiatou, because 'I had unconscious 'noble ideas' for her.' And in the note, she admits to 'creating a fictional character as a gesture of returned dignity. Clear-eyed realism, but touched by tenderness.' So this character's journey is undeniably political, elevating the perspective of a person whose allegations against a very powerful man were shut down in the courts. But, Adichie adds, the goal is to be 'relentlessly human,' not 'ideological': Kadiatou has lost her husband, struggles with American sexual mores, longs for home. To render her carefully, Adichie tells Beckerman, she did prodigious research and watched hours of videos of Guinean women cooking. Her portrait reflects the world as Adichie wishes it were, but also shows a deep recognition of the world as it is. For a novelist, that is more than enough. Chimamanda Adichie Is a Hopeless Romantic By Gal Beckerman Discussing Dream Count, her first novel in 12 years, the Nigerian author shares her thoughts on masculinity, political chaos, and the future of fiction. Read the full article. , by Edith Wharton 'Mrs. Wharton,' reads a line in The Atlantic's review of her 1927 novel, Twilight Sleep, 'has never really descended from that plane of excellence which since its beginning has characterized her work.' Implicit in this observation: until now. Although contemporary reviewers might not have appreciated Twilight Sleep as much as they did Wharton's previous books, her 17th novel offers an updated, Jazz Age–variation on a familiar, Wharton-esque theme: social ruin. In Roaring '20s New York, Pauline Manford, the book's heroine, inoculates herself from life's unpleasantries—including her second husband's affair with his stepson's wife, Lita—with a busy social calendar, but when disaster strikes and the affair is discovered, not even Pauline's unblinking devotion to rationality, truth, and progress can soothe her emotional reaction. Named after the drug cocktail given to women in the 20th century to ward off the pains of childbirth, which brings to mind the anesthetized attitude of some of its characters, Twilight Sleep was republished in late 2024. — Rhian Sasseen From our list: Six older books that deserve to be popular today 📚 The Antidote, by Karen Russell 📚 Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful, by David Enrich 📚 Goddess Complex, by Sanjena Sathian Cling to Your Disgust By Spencer Kornhaber It was inauguration weekend, and I'd been sitting in a restaurant where the bartender was blasting a playlist of songs by the rapper once known as Kanye West. The music sounded, frankly, awesome. Most of the songs were from when I considered myself a fan of his, long before he rebranded as the world's most famous Hitler admirer. I hadn't heard this much Ye music played in public in years; privately, I'd mostly avoided it. But as I nodded along, I thought it might be time to redownload Yeezus. Read the full article. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Sign up for The Wonder Reader, a Saturday newsletter in which our editors recommend stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Explore all of our newsletters. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Place of Politics in Fiction
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors' weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. Novelists are an opinionated lot. They often say things, write essays, and sign petitions reflecting political positions that many of their biggest fans might not like. One of the best things about fiction is that it can convey higher (or at least more complicated) truths than even the author knows. A reader doesn't have to sign on to V. S. Naipaul's sometimes odious beliefs about postcolonial societies to take pleasure in his language and characters, or support a boycott of Israel, as Rachel Kushner publicly has, to find in her novel Creation Lake a nuanced but withering portrayal of both extractive capitalists and callow activists. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie self-consciously embodies this split between the novelist and polemicist. Her new novel, Dream Count, is her first in a dozen years—a period during which she wrote and spoke frequently about feminism, grief, and political dogmas. In a conversation this week with the Atlantic staff writer Gal Beckerman, Adichie explained how her novel departs from her beliefs, and why that's a good thing. She also made clear that compartmentalizing her ideas of 'what the world should be' is not as easy as it might seem. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic 's Books Section: Both Beckerman and Tyler Austin Harper, who also wrote about Dream Count this week, cite an offhand, possibly facetious statement that Adichie made in 2016: 'We women should spend about 20 percent of our time on men, because it's fun, but otherwise we should be talking about other stuff.' Why, in defiance of this feminist assertion, are men so prominent in her new book, they wonder? Because 'I don't want to write about women's lives as I wish they were,' she told Beckerman. Instead, the novel tries to imagine actual women interacting with actual men. In fact, Adichie has strong opinions on the question of politics in fiction; as she told Beckerman, she believes that many writers are prone to 'ideological conformity,' which can hobble their work. Perhaps she'd support this modest proposal: Fiction should spend about 20 percent of its time imagining the world as the author would like it to be. But that's easier said than done. We don't live in a time when politics can be cordoned off from art; it permeates the world, and a novel without much of it would be difficult to believe. In an author's note at the end of the book, Adichie confirms that the story of her character Kadiatou bears a close resemblance to the 2011 case of Nafissatou Diallo, the Guinean immigrant who alleged that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, assaulted her in a New York City hotel suite. (All criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn were dismissed; he settled Diallo's civil suit against him for an undisclosed sum.) Adichie told Beckerman that she had struggled 'to write honestly' about Kadiatou, because 'I had unconscious 'noble ideas' for her.' And in the note, she admits to 'creating a fictional character as a gesture of returned dignity. Clear-eyed realism, but touched by tenderness.' So this character's journey is undeniably political, elevating the perspective of a person whose allegations against a very powerful man were shut down in the courts. But, Adichie adds, the goal is to be 'relentlessly human,' not 'ideological': Kadiatou has lost her husband, struggles with American sexual mores, longs for home. To render her carefully, Adichie tells Beckerman, she did prodigious research and watched hours of videos of Guinean women cooking. Her portrait reflects the world as Adichie wishes it were, but also shows a deep recognition of the world as it is. For a novelist, that is more than enough. Chimamanda Adichie Is a Hopeless Romantic By Gal Beckerman Discussing Dream Count, her first novel in 12 years, the Nigerian author shares her thoughts on masculinity, political chaos, and the future of fiction. What to Read Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton 'Mrs. Wharton,' reads a line in The Atlantic 's review of her 1927 novel, Twilight Sleep, 'has never really descended from that plane of excellence which since its beginning has characterized her work.' Implicit in this observation: until now. Although contemporary reviewers might not have appreciated Twilight Sleep as much as they did Wharton's previous books, her 17th novel offers an updated, Jazz Age–variation on a familiar, Wharton-esque theme: social ruin. In Roaring '20s New York, Pauline Manford, the book's heroine, inoculates herself from life's unpleasantries—including her second husband's affair with his stepson's wife, Lita—with a busy social calendar, but when disaster strikes and the affair is discovered, not even Pauline's unblinking devotion to rationality, truth, and progress can soothe her emotional reaction. Named after the drug cocktail given to women in the 20th century to ward off the pains of childbirth, which brings to mind the anesthetized attitude of some of its characters, Twilight Sleep was republished in late 2024. — Rhian Sasseen Out Next Week 📚 The Antidote, by Karen Russell 📚 , by David Enrich 📚 Goddess Complex, by Sanjena Sathian Your Weekend Read By Spencer Kornhaber It was inauguration weekend, and I'd been sitting in a restaurant where the bartender was blasting a playlist of songs by the rapper once known as Kanye West. The music sounded, frankly, awesome. Most of the songs were from when I considered myself a fan of his, long before he rebranded as the world's most famous Hitler admirer. I hadn't heard this much Ye music played in public in years; privately, I'd mostly avoided it. But as I nodded along, I thought it might be time to redownload Yeezus. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
