Writers Who Read
LIVE! #44
LIVE! #44
5 November 2022
When We Cease to Understand the World
by Benjamín Labatut
by Benjamín Labatut
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Meet today's author: Benjamín Labatut
- Born in Rotterdam in 1980, Labutut grew up in
- The Hague, Buenos Aires and Lima - Trained as a journalist
- Writes in Spanish and English
- Suffered an emotional breakdown he described in his previous novel,
After The Light - Since then he has stopped reading novels
- Lives with his family in Santiago, Chile, but spends as much time as he can in a cabin in the mountains, 3 hours from Santiago
- Gardens at night
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Historical Biographical Fiction, Biographical Fiction, Alternate History Science Fiction
- Genre: Mediumform Worldview Factualism Miniplot
- Print Pages: 193; Word count: 48,213
- Reading Grade: 14th; Avg. wds/sent.: 25.93
- Lexical Density: 47; Flesch Reading Ease: 50.02
- POV: multiple; Person: 3rd; Tense: past
- EXCEPT The Night Gardiner, which is 1st Person, present tense
- Publish date: September 28, 2021
- Publisher: New York Review of Books
- Paperback: July 1, 2021
- Audio book narr.: Adam Barr (5 hours 40 minutes)
- Recognition: Winner an English PEN Award; Finalist 2021 International Booker; Obama's 2021 reading list
- Writing When We Cease
- Labatut says that this book is NOT a novel
- He calls it an essay, followed by two short stories, followed by a novella
- Prussian Blue is a factual essay except for its final paragraph
- The following sections incorporate more and more fictional elements
- He wrote the bulk of the work in Spanish, but The Night Gardiner he wrote in English
