England has always reveled in its drawing-room dramas, from Jane Austen’s social minefields to E.M. Forster’s Howards End to Upstairs, Downstairs — and yes, the blockbuster Downton Abbey. John Lanchester’s brilliant Capital, set on a once-ordinary London block whose housing prices have skyrocketed, has the distinction of being the first brick-and-mortar novel set squarely in our current times.
Take Five
Posted by Lizzie on 01/21/07
Those of you that ever pay ANY attention to what we do may recall a year or two or so ago–we’re over thirty now; who cares anymore–our trying to get together something called "Teaser" that would print first chapters from forthcoming works. We did, like, two before we were informed that Pride & Prejudice needed repeated watching. Though we still maintain our very wonderful teasers will whup any kind of behind, Five Chapters is attending a little more diligently to a similar project–in a weekly fashion, yet! At this brilliantly simple site, one story is serialized over a work week; a new author arrives each Monday. This week is J. Robert Lennon; you can check out the archives here. (They include Thisbe Nissen, Anthony Swofford and Vendela Vida, just to start.) We actually have a very hard time reading print online (we know, we know, a vegetarian butcher), so we hope the wonderful editor, David Daley, considers adjusting the grayscale text for us old folkspeople who need glasses. The "Print" function is a start–maybe consider a formatted downloadable PDF, or, we don’t know, something with a pretty cover we could buy in a store? Whatever. Live it up, you twentysomething bastards.
Vendela Vida, eh? I bet you devoured that one…xoxox
Behave, behave. I really would try it, but I seriously can’t read the text. It’s depressing.
With certain authors, it is more difficult to behave than it is to take them seriously.
Thanks for enabling my bad behavior, Ed. I knew I could co-depend on you.