Culture
How Silence Improves Pico Iyer’s Life
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For decades, starting in 1991 after his house in Santa Barbara burned to the ground, the travel writer and essayist Pico Iyer has taken regular silent retreats at a Benedictine monastery in Northern California as a way to recharge himself through solitude. He writes about those retreats, and the lessons they’ve imparted, in his new book, “Aflame: Learning From Silence.”
Iyer joins us on the podcast this week to talk about his new memoir and his life’s journeys.
“I’m a writer, so I spend most of my day alone,” he tells the host Gilbert Cruz. “And it’s true that even from a young age, I only had to step into the silence of any monastery and convert, and I felt a kind of longing, the way other people feel a longing when they see a delectable meal or pistachio gelato or some such. But I’d always felt this longing.”
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Among the many complaints made about the modern American novelist, the loudest, if not the most intelligent, has been the charge that he is not speaking for his country. A few seasons back an editorial in Life magazine asked grandly, “Who speaks for America today?” and was not able to conclude that our novelists, or at least our most gifted ones, did.
This opening paragraph is from an essay titled “The Fiction Writer and His Country” by a writer whose work was influenced by Catholicism, the rural South and peacocks. Who was it?
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge is all about an influential group of writers, editors and other creative types known as the Algonquin Round Table. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to related books and other information about the era if you’d like to do further reading.
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. But as it’s summer here in the Northern Hemisphere and travel adventures abound, this week’s literary geography quiz takes you on a trivia tour of notable libraries around the world. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to more information if you’d like to do further reading.
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