Proust, ChatGPT and the case of the forgotten quote

The long read: In search of a half-remembered passage among the French writer’s voluminous work, I turned to AI to help me find it. The results were instructive – just not about Proust

The Guardian

A semi-autobiographical portrait of the writer as a freshman at Harvard, Selin fumbling her way through everything new & falling in love & perhaps mostly about realising she isn't "normal" & coming to terms with it, that it's a good thing for a prospective writer.
I enjoyed the oddness & calmness, the random, banal events & Selin's unorthodox & awkward responses.

#booksofmastodon #bookstodon #readingcommunity #bibliophile #books #Bookreview #bookrecommendation #bookToot @bookstodon #ElifBatuman

@omdaru

Just finished this fascinating article by #ElifBatuman.

An ironic account of Selin's young life mirrored in her Harvard literature syllabus. Apparently a worldly life is needed for writing & she doggedly endeavours to amend a previously less worldly existence regardless of the discomfort & disquiet it may cause, all the way to her ancestral Turkey & beyond. According to Kierkegaard a life, apparently, must be lived either aesthetically or ethically.
#booksofmastodon #bookstodon #Bookreview #bookrecommendation #bookToot @bookstodon #ElifBatuman
https://russian-world-citizens.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-new-yorker-rereading-russian.html Russian World Citizens Project: #TheNewYorker: Rereading #RussianClassics in the Shadow of the #UkraineWar by #ElifBatuman " Vronsky on his way to join a Pan-Slavic volunteer detachment fighting the Ottomans in Serbia. With Anna dead, and the love plot over, his only desire is to end his own life, and to kill as many Turks as possible in the process. “#Russia is always waging a war where a man can flee in search of death.” #Tolstoy #essay #AnnaKarenina #imperialism
The New Yorker: Rereading Russian Classics in the Shadow of the Ukraine War by Elif Batuman

  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/rereading-russian-classics-in-the-shadow-of-the-ukraine-war Rereading Russian Classics in th...

"And still life goes on in Chekhov’s garden, where it’s always a fine day for hanging yourself, and somebody somewhere is playing the guitar. ...Now the samovar has almost gone cold, and frost has touched the cherry blossoms. Dr. #Chekhov, loyal custodian of the human body, you who could look in the ear of an idle man and see an entire universe—where are you now?... The Possessed by #ElifBatuman #nonfiction #books #Russia #RussianLiterature #bookstodon #literature
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6763627-the-possessed
The Possessed

No one who read Elif Batuman’s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. “Babel in California” told the true story of vario...