writing in another language

Here are two links to interesting articles at the New York Times.

1. “Born Again in a Second Language”

This is on the very interesting subject of writing in a second language. It reminded me of a piece in the New Yorker several decades ago about Tom Stoppard (by Kenneth Tynan, if I remember correctly). In it, talking about Stoppard and Joseph Conrad, he observed that you have to (I’m paraphrasing) come to a new language in order to write with such hypnotized brilliance.

Nabokov is another example, of course.

Me, I have trouble imagining writing (writing well, anyway) in a language other than English, but of course I can’t really imagine writing like Stoppard or Conrad or Nabokov anyway.

2. The other is a piece about manual typewriters: “I Am TOM. I Like to TYPE. Hear That?”

I’m not nostalgic about manual typewriters (as I write this on my Android tablet with my BlueTooth keyboard), but it is definitely true that there’s a tactile pleasure with typewriters (and good pens) and no electronic device can equal.

 
Also (not from the New York Times):

This is pretty great: “Morrissey and Peanuts, Together at Last”

It goes well with 3eanuts. 

 
In addition, Amazon just sent me an email recommending more military romances, since that’s what I’m into.

I’m now going to check if someone else has been using my account, since I can’t recall ever buying any military romances.

Or military.

Or romances.