A collection of 52 posts
On New Year’s Eve 2021 news of my killing began to circulate on Twitter. holy shit this is a murder https://t.co/CwsF0sZ9sZ — Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) January 1, 2022 I scrolled through scores of posts before I could stop myself, pausing to read replies and retweets. Some
Few novels become institutions, to have departments rigged up around them, whole constituencies and spheres of scholarship, as works of lifelong study, fascination and confusion. Ulysses, whose publication centenary will be observed on February 2nd, is one such book. Like Marx’s Kapital, Joyce’s door-stopping opus has kept academics
Many people no doubt roll their eyes in scoffing dismissal when they hear the commonly expressed—and almost as commonly crooned—wish for a White Christmas. But there are sound spiritual reasons for longing to see one’s environs blanketed with snow. Silent in its approach and accumulation, snow can
For the “new intellectual,” ultimately, the way forward has to be paved with nuance and understanding.
Almost from its inception, the Beat Generation seemed to be doomed to failure. In and around Columbia University, a ragtag group of bohemians coalesced based upon an odd array of mutual interests. Two of them were homosexuals, one bisexual, and all were interested in drugs and subversive literature. William S.
Woolf’s depiction of these inner rhythms would be refined in the novels that followed—To the Lighthouse and The Waves—but Dalloway was the true birth of this form.
Orwell represents one of those strange cases where a writer’s reputation predominantly rests, if not on his worst, then certainly his least typical book.
I. On April 18th of this year, Blake Bailey, 58, the author of Philip Roth: The Biography, was abruptly dropped by his literary agency, the Story Company. His book had been published on April 6th, and climbed to the top of the bestseller lists. But then allegations emerged that while
Canada has never supported the US embargo, and the countries’ good relations are for many Canadians a symbol of our independence.
“What’s it about?” is usually the first question we ask when someone recommends a new book, and it’s the wrong question.
The intermingling of elements—culture, language, religion—is celebrated, while the concept of purity in identity and culture is repudiated as too constricting.
The real-life Tolkien, who loathed trite allegory, would have cringed.
An even moderately careful reading of Lolita should make it quite clear that it’s anything but a “celebration” of child rape.
The world of the left generally, and of LGBT identity politics specifically, wasn’t always focused on infinite fragmentation within sects.
The issue was that when a white playwright’s work was produced, casting directors were assuming that they should cast white actors. We were all aghast.