A collection of 62 posts
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.
No reason to believe that classics as a field has had any particular tendency towards white supremacism either in the present or in the past.
If we are looking for a civilization that never engaged in mass violence or destruction, we’re unlikely to find one.
As Thomas Paine wrote, “To argue with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
Children get a wider perspective when they’re tugged out of the here and now for a little while each day. In an enchanted hour, we can read them stories of the real and imagined past.
Appiah is wrong to pretend that distinct civilizations were never a thing.