April 26, 2007

Work in literature. "Joshua Ferris, author of an acclaimed debut about office life, goes in search of the workaday world in American literature." From the U.K. Guardian. If you're gonna turn off your TV this week, you'll likely be reading more than normal. Might as well read the literature Ferris looks at, like Bartleby the Scrivener (setting: 19th century Wall Street), Kafka's The Metamorphosis, The Great Gatsby, Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road, and George Saunders's Pastoralia.
posted by HawthorneWingo 16 years ago
  • Via the wonderful Arts & Letters Daily.
  • I've been feeling very Bartleby myself lately.
  • Thanks, HW, for a new linkie to explore.
  • Good one, HW. Made me think about other work-related writings by Melville and Kafka, such as "The Country Doctor," "The Hunger Artist," and of course "Moby Dick.". Makes me sad and wistful that I can't punch out, go home, and spend the rest of the rainy afternoon flanked by warm and sleeping cats with a beautifully-bound volume opened before me like a buffet. Sigh. It sucks to be a drone. Which is what these guys were writing about, apparently.
  • c'mon kinnakeet - don't grumble, give a whistle!
  • What, while I work? *whistles the first notes of Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto* Wow, you're right! I feel sooo much better now.
  • Workaday world? Look no further than The Jungle. Or, if you're looking for less gross-out and more heft, The Octopus or The Pit by the ever-underrated Frank Norris,
  • A four-part appreciation of Yates's Revolutionary Road in the U.K. Guardian: One Two Three Four