Dreams and Schemes
Guest host Guest host Neil Gaiman introduces two American classics. In Ray Bradbury’s futuristic “The Veldt,” a virtual reality nursery turns on its owners. The reader is Stephen Colbert. In James Thurber’s “The Catbird Seat,” a mild-mannered employee plots revenge. Leonard Nimoy performs.
"The Student’s Wife" is from Raymond Carver’s first story collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please, published in America in 1976. You could say it’s from Ray’s "early period" – written possibly as early as the late 60s, when he was one side or the other of 30 years old. Its verbal resources are spare, direct, rarely polysyllabic, restrained, intense, never melodramatic, and real-sounding while being obviously literary in intent. (You always know, pleasurably, that you’re reading a made short story.) These affecting qualities led some dunderheads to call his stories "minimalist", which they are most assuredly not, inasmuch as they’re full-to-the-brim with the stuff of human intimacy, of longing, of barely unearthable humour, of exquisite nuance, of pathos, of unlooked-for dread, and often of love – expressed in words and gestures not frequently associated with love. More than they are minimal, they are replete with the renewings and the fresh awarenesses we go to great literature to find. When they were first published in Britain by Collins Harvill, they made a great sensation that quickly spread all over the world, and made Ray (who was lovable, anyway) adored as the great story writer of his generation. Which he was. And is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2012/dec/23/richard-ford-raymond-carver-wife
It is in many ways a unique story. Here is a creature imagined, something that is higher and better and different from a man. Here is the dream of a creature that is half horse, half man, who has the physical fitness of a horse and the mental complexity of a man. This extraordinary fable shows the depths of the human confusion that the creature faces. It is a wonderful way of looking into the conflict between what one’s body desires or dictates – sexual desire as part of our power; it’s through sexual desire that you take possession, after all – and many of one’s other ideals about how we ought to approach another being. There’s as much in this little story as in 20 novels and 20 poems.
Junot Diaz burst onto the literary scene with "Drown," a collection of short stories voiced by Yunior, a tough-talking Latino struggling to make his way on the streets of New Jersey. Diaz has revived Yunior for his latest book, "This Is How You Lose Her." Only this time, Yunior is juggling multiple women, and figuring out how to be faithful to his fiancee. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author joins us to talk about the book, and what it takes to be faithful.
“Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. Those who can’t imagine the future are doomed to fuck it up.”
Lauren Beukes explores how fiction is a model our brains run to explore other lives and possibilities, overcome issue fatigue and fire our cultural imagination.
http://2012.dconstruct.org/conference/beukes/
Lauren Beukes is the author of Zoo City, which won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke award. That’s because it’s bloody brilliant. Seriously, if you haven’t read it, grab a copy now.
Her first novel, the excellent near-future dystopia Moxyland, was set in Cape Town, where Lauren lives with her husband and daughter. Her next book, The Shining Girls, will be set in Chicago and feature a time-travelling serial killer.
As well as being a novelist, Lauren is a journalist and has collaborated on television and comic book projects.
Matthew Klam reads Charles D’Ambrosio’s "The Point" and discusses it with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. "The Point" was published in the October 1, 1990, issue of The New Yorker and was the title story of D’Ambrosio’s first collection. Matthew Klam’s most recent book of stories is "Sam the Cat."
This edition of the fiction podcast will take a break from the regular format and will feature Colum McCann reading his own story "Transatlantic." The regular format will resume at the beginning of May, with Matthew Klam reading Charles D’Ambrosio’s "The Point." "Transatlantic" was published in the April 16, 2012, issue of The New Yorker. McCann is the author of two collections of stories and five novels, including the National Book Award-winning "Let the Great World Spin."
Nobody blurred the line between his life and his literature more than the legendary science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick. And that’s only fitting since one of the major themes of his fiction is, “What is reality?” This week we take a look at the life and work of the man who’s been described as “one of the most valiant psychological explorers of the twentieth century,” as we commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death.
What will it mean to be human in the future? Uploading consciousness into virtual worlds and prolonging life through biotechnology are already being contemplated. Canada’s leading science fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer, offers his insights in a lecture entitled Humanity 2.0, produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada.
Thomas Beller reads Niccolo Tucci’s "The Evolution of Knowledge," and discusses it with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. "The Evolution of Knowledge" was published in the April 12, 1947, issue of The New Yorker and can be found in "The Rain Came Last & Other Stories." Thomas Beller is the author of "How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood."
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