Our golden writing couple
Two nice interview pieces with Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss. The Foer piece reveals a traumatic childhood incident, which caused the 9-year-old Foer "a nervous breakdown that lasted almost 3 years." These two might just go down as our first First Literary Couple. We've had these couples in theater, why not in literature? They could give the whole scribbling business a needed shot of glamor. And imagine their children: talk about born writers.
posted by Adam @ 8:10 AM
5 Comments:
"These two might just go down as our first First Literary Couple"
Hardly the first lit-cup. What about Ted and Sylvia? (Hughes and Plath) Or Didion and Dunne? (Joan and John G.) Or do you mean first in some other sense?
I forgot about those others, though Ted and Sylvia were the tragic pair, with Sylvia the innocent lamb and Ted the wolf. I dunno, Jonathan and Nicole simply have the glam thing down. They're both hardly 30, they both got their books bought by the movies, they're both good-looking, and charmingly earnest, and I just think they're God's gift to the litworld as a budding Star Couple. I wish them well; I sincerely hope they both end up writing masterpieces, and go down in the history of love as well as of writing.
Remember Seinfeld's "nonsexual guy crush"? What I'm getting from this is that you have a nonsexual guy crush ON THIS COUPLE. I've occasionally had couple crushes too: i.e., couples who are inherently fascinating to contemplate as an entity. There have only been a few for me. Personally I prefer weird assymetrical litcups. Like VS Naipaul and his over the top younger missus. Another couple I liked -- politics not lit -- was Pierre and Maggie Trudeau. How about Larissa MacFarquhar and Phillip Gourevitch. Both good looking, she's especially charismatic, and both are such good talented writers. And, for those who like symmetry, they both write for the New Yorker.
I didn't know about Larissa and Philip. He wrote the book about Rwanda, right? What has she written? Where can I see pictures of them? You're right, I do have a COUPLE crush on Nicole and Jonathan. Though it's also a kind of gratitude rush, because I think their coupledom makes writers look cool and hip.
I think Joan Didion's done a better job of projecting cool and hip than anyone has in the last how many years.
Larissa is brilliant. She writes profiles for The New Yorker. She wrote the Chomsky profile that you probably read -- but you can't remember who wrote it because she does a scary job of disappearing from the piece. Check this out -- a fascinating chat with Larissa about her profiling technique:
"...every interview is a short-lived, but intense love affair..."
I think Larissa Mac is probably the best writer they've got doing profiles. I wish she would write a book. She's very enigmatic.
http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/inside/2004/macfarquhar.html
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