173: Alphabetical book completed.
Last week’s bonus issue on English teaching and AI caused a stir: people are eager to read intelligent and sceptical analysis.
Next week, an Occasional (issue 4) for paid subscribers on some of the best books in the Fortnightly since 2016.
In Alphabetical Diaries,
Sheila Heti’s latest book, the form risks being a gimmick. She boiled down 500,000 words from her personal diaries to 50,000, after uploading everything to a spreadsheet and then alphabetising it. There are 25 chapters (no X, one sentence for both Q and Z).
But far from being a purposeless exercise, the result turns out to be funny, poignant and above all thought-provoking. I have found few books this year as interesting as this slim volume.
My thoughts at greater length.
Robert Caro
is, as long-term readers of the Fortnightly will know, an author I have an abiding grá [non-Irish readers, Google] for. Back in 169 I recommended the film about him and his editor Robert Gottlieb, Turn Every Page.
He is best-known for his epic and still unfinished LBJ biography, with many of us hanging on in hope it will be completed soon. This is the 50th anniversary of the publication of his other masterpiece, The Power Broker, a single-volume account of the impact of Robert Moses on the cityscape of New York City, and of Long Island. Here’s an interview with Alexandra Alter in the NYT: gift link.
in Noted has this fascinating illustrated piece on Caro’s Cork Board. Lots more in the New York Historical Society’s exhibition ‘Turn Every Page.’As he peered at documents from his archives, Caro, 88, was reminded of the difficult years he had spent working on the book — when his family ran out of money and he doubted it would ever be published — and of the painful editing process; he had to cut about 350,000 words from the million-plus words in his manuscript. Most of all, he said he felt sad and worried that the lessons in “The Power Broker” about the dangers of “unchecked power” had gone largely unheeded.
Booking link for free King Lear webinar on October 16th.
The Reading Map: a primer
is an excellently clear analysis by Christopher Such, author of The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading, in under 9 minutes. He takes us through what he thinks are ‘the most important things teachers need to know about reading.’
Hamlet resources:
The third in a series directing you to things I’ve written on the great tragedies. Next time, Othello.
Quizlets for quotation retrieval practice (designed for Leaving Certificate revision). One per Act, plus one with them all for the whole play. Important: discuss the ideas/context etc for each quotation, rather than ‘just’ recall it.
15 key moments annotated (video and audio).
Thinking about quotations: 15 exercises pupils can do on their own or, even better, in a pair. Once they know the play well.
SCC English revision podcasts are here, on 'The first soliloquy','The first scene', and two ones which gather the 10 Characters series (below). And two essays based on podcasts: 1) on the opening scene. 2) on the first soliloquy.
10 Characters in Hamlet: 5-minute podcasts on 'lesser' characters: Fortinbras, Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius, Ophelia, The First Player, Osric, The First Gravedigger.
My notes on Gabriel Josipovici’s fascinating book Hamlet Fold by Fold.
My notes on the Hamlet chapter in Emma Smith’s book This is Shakespeare.
My notes and links for a webinar on revising the play, given via Tralee Education Support Centre in November 2023.
Teaching and Learning Things:
I’m off to researchED Belfast this morning, the first in Northern Ireland. A report next time. Meanwhile, here’s my one on researchED Dublin 2022, almost exactly 2 years ago. They are huge things to organise, but also hugely rewarding.
Carl Hendrick: ‘Seeing a lot of schools mandating retrieval practice in every lesson but also seeing quite a few misconceptions: A quick thread: 10 ways to get retrieval practice wrong.' ‘Mandating’ is extraordinary.
5. Not using errors as a learning event: Errors are valuable learning opportunities, and retrieval practice can help uncover them. Rather than simply marking answers as right or wrong, teachers should encourage students to analyze their mistakes and understand why they made them.
I recommended Katriona O’Sullivan’s Poor in 172. It turns out that she’s the keynote speaker at the annual conference of INOTE, the English Teachers’ Association, on October 19th in Portlaoise. On top of that you can hear from the poet Victoria Kennefick, whose second collection egg/shell I wrote about in March. Book via the INOTE site.
Et Cetera
I didn’t expect to find out that King Charles is a wonderful reader of Gerard Manley Hopkins, here of ‘God’s Grandeur,’ which I taught last week for the nth time. My recent essay on teaching Hopkins.
A profile of Katherine Rundell in the NYT by Sarah Lyell. Super-Infinite: the transformations of John Donne was my Book of 2022, and subsequently I and Miss 12 read her fantasy novel Impossible Creatures together. What a talent. Gift link. On Donne:
Rundell never expected to write a general-interest biography, she said, but as she worked on her graduate thesis, she became increasingly enamored of the poet at its center, as well as of the sublime work he produced under punishing conditions — religious persecution, penury, chronic illness, thwarted romantic longing. Her book is both labor of love and one-woman P.R. campaign. “What I really wanted was a Trojan horse to make people read his poetry,” she said.
- always writes well. On , her latest piece is ‘No, I’m Not Always Available’:
the pressure to always be available isn’t just bad for our mental health; it’s also bad for our relationships. Checking in with each other has become a chore. Getting back to my friends shouldn’t be a task on my to-do list. I think this is a big part of why people say friendships feel like admin now, and just another joyless thing to do on a screen.
News about the Irish library system continues to be cheering: now, a big new facility for Crumlin and Drimnagh is planned. My piece on libraries from January.
Joy Williams on autumn (fall) via Austin Kleon:
It always comes round, with its lovely patience. If in the beginning it’s restless, at the end it’s resigned, complete in its waiting, complete in the utter correctness of what it has to tell us. Which is that we’re transitory.
The man who opens up the Sistine Chapel in the morning.
'Man Seated Near Lamp' (1953) by Fairfield Porter.
I love it when writers innovate formally — even though the result, obviously, is not always great — so I've been wanting to read the Alphabetical Diary for a while. So I'm really delighted that you thought it a worthwhile read! I feel encouraged to read it.