Arts & Letters Daily - Ideas, Criticism, Debate

4/10/2018 Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate
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April 10, 2018
Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

Muriel Spark left Edinburgh when she was 18 but held fast to a belief she associated with the place: that contradictory ideas can have equal validity... more »
(https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/04/look-long-prime-novelist-muriel-spark-centenary-her-birth)
New Books (/new-books/)

James Wood was well matched to the literary style of the 1990s — aesthetics were in, politics out. Now things have changed. Does Wood still matter?... more »
(https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/james-wood-upstate-review/)
Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

The cult of Tocqueville: How did a Frenchman who hasn’t been in the United States in over 185 years become the man everyone loves to quote?... more »
(https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/04/03/non-to-tocqueville/)
April 9, 2018

The fate of handwriting. It was imperiled by the printing press, then the typewriter, the computer, and the phone. But is an elegy premature?... more »
(https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/hands-off-handwriting-calligraphy/)

Most remarkable about Alexander von Humboldt's scientific achievements is that he didn't accidentally kill himself long before 1859, when he died at age
90... more » (https://literaryreview.co.uk/he-never-sat-an-exam)

The death of Seamus Heaney lets us mourn not only an artist of rare verbal gifts but also the loss of a language that long mapped a way of living... more »
(https://aeon.co/essays/as-we-mourn-the-poet-we-mourn-a-way-of-being-in-the-world)
April 7, 2018

The trouble with being a witty woman. Dorothy Parker, praised for her sharpness, was marketed for her personality. She wanted to be recognized for her
intellect... more » (http://www.weeklystandard.com/witty-women/article/2012205)

Our understanding of consciousness is not just a “hard problem” — it’s a scandal, a mess. Into the fray ventures Antonio Damasio with his theory of
homeostasis... more » (https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/antonio-damasio-feeling-and-the-evolution-of-consciousness-siri-hustvedt-on-the-strange-order-of-
things/)

Samuel Beckett's relationship with his mother was long, tempestuous, and, he realized, formative. “I am what her savage loving has made me”... more »
(http://www.drb.ie/essays/sons-and-mothers)
April 6, 2018
https://www.aldaily.com/ 1/7
Reading Julia Kristeva's Bulgarian intelligence dossier feels like voyeurism. Turns out she used theoretical language even in letters to her father... more »
(https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/04/03/maria-dimitrova/a-jar-a-blouse-a-letter/)

The anecdotes, the famous faces bobbing in and out of view, the reams of office lore (sex on the desk, nervous breakdowns in the bathroom stall): What is Rolling
Stone’s legacy?... more » (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/19/jann-wenner-man-who-wanted-everything/)

What makes scientific theories true? Falsifiability or observability work in some cases, but the madcap ideas that push the borders of knowledge require a
different approach... more » (https://aeon.co/essays/a-fetish-for-falsification-and-observation-holds-back-science?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=atom-feed)
April 5, 2018

By the mid-‘60s, Joan Didion was bored with writing film reviews. A murder case helped her hone a neat trick: how to convey a personal matter at a
distance... more » (https://www.buzzfeed.com/michelledean/how-joan-didion-became-joan-didion?utm_term=.bnVKm7aL8a#.uu2QoJ4vg4)

The two Tennessee Williamses. He made sure his wildly transgressive stories reached only a niche audience. His sanitized Broadway big-hitters were another
case entirely... more » (https://literaryreview.co.uk/plenty-of-dish)

The writerly imperialism of Dave Eggers. His work is a combination of twee visual details, Muslim characters, and a well-meaning American
exceptionalism... more » (https://newrepublic.com/article/147377/model-businessman-dave-eggers-misses-story)
April 4, 2018

For 200 years, Frankenstein has been read as a warning against unfettered scientific inquiry. That reflects a profound misunderstanding of the story... more »
(http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/04/victor-frankenstein-is-the-rea)

As Kate Manne and Mary Beard plumb the depths of the patriarchy, a question emerges: Has anything changed since The Odyssey?... more »
(https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/women-and-power-down-girl/)

Beware the grammar bullies! Morality and language are linked, argued Ursula K. Le Guin. But morality and correctness are not the same thing... more »
(https://www.vqronline.org/interviews-articles/2018/03/imaginative-reality-ursula-k-le-guin)
April 3, 2018

The man behind the dictionary. Noah Webster Jr. had superiority issues, a penchant for political incorrectness, and a zeal for Americanizing English... more »
(https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/30/noah-websters-american-english)

Harold Bloom has had it with comma counters, gender commissars, and literary critics. He is, to his own mind, a lone voice in the wilderness... more »
(https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/4/department-of-none)

James Baldwin in Hollywood. He was there to make a movie about Malcolm X. It didn't go well. “I would rather be horsewhipped ... than repeat the
adventure”... more » (http://bostonreview.net/race/ed-pavlic/baldwins-lonely-country)
April 2, 2018
In 1941, W.H. Auden taught a class at the University of Michigan that required 6,000 pages of reading. Would a college student take such a course today? Yes, it
turns out... more » (https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Hardest-Course-in-the/242896?
key=HnRoS7rGU2F1XrEi2rMQqrwppoXgIr2IjPSPFLl4HVIE1frNERzrIPfrUG_b1dn6MnVXVnp5UlpoWWRPN3FBMkpHaXROZ3JnOTB2WWc3a1RxSG9ld01hRjhDMA)

Before modern philosophy, there were Erasmus and Luther. Their dispute stands as a lasting reminder that among the threats to human flourishing, misplaced
certitude shouldn’t be underestimated... more » (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/books/review/fatal-discord-michael-massing.html)

"Populism" is a label often used but little understood. It's incoherent an ideology yet not to be dismissed as deranged or imaginary. Populism is a disease in the body
politic... more » (https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/democracy-and-its-discontents)
March 31, 2018

When music went minimalist. Boos echoed around Carnegie Hall; patrons headed for the exits; a woman banged her shoe on the stage, imploring the musicians
to stop... more » (https://theamericanscholar.org/organ-grinding/)

Life with Doris Lessing. An author attempts to enact her radical concept of freedom. But can a life so liberated regain a conventional shape?... more »
(https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/sex-lies-and-communism-finding-freedom-through-doris-lessing)

The poet Joan Murray died at 24. Her manuscripts, sent to be preserved, apparently fell off the back of a truck. Is it fair, then, to call her a minor poet?... more »
(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/146261/minor-notes)
March 30, 2018

Galileo’s invention of the telescope not only broke with the church but upset philosophers as well. “To observe through those glasses gives me a headache,” said
one professor... more » (http://nautil.us/issue/58/self/when-the-heavens-stopped-being-perfect)

What happens to anthropology when its fundamental divisions are undone — when magic and reason, and “primitive” and “modern,” no longer organize the
field?... more » (http://www.publicbooks.org/conjuring-anthropologys-future/)

When fiction fuels the future. Sun-powered screens, electric weather, telepathy via battery — by picturing what’s to come, does science fiction help us invent
it?... more » (https://aeon.co/essays/how-science-fiction-feeds-the-fuel-solutions-of-the-future)
March 29, 2018

Joanna Russ isn't much remembered in the annals of science fiction, nor women’s writing, and certainly not American literature. But her influence is felt all the
same... more » (https://thebaffler.com/latest/no-mothers-no-daughters-crispin)

The world’s least orthodox literary salon: a fascist lecturing to literary titans in an asylum. Ezra Pound’s visitors, the “Ezrologists,” pioneered the tale of the
“bughouse” visit... more » (https://www.thenation.com/article/coming-to-terms-with-ezra-pounds-politics/)

Hyper-liberalism is the academy's legitimating ideology, says John Gray. "The result is a richly entertaining mixture of bourgeois careerism with virtue-signaling
self-righteousness"... more » (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/john-gray-hyper-liberalism-liberty/)
March 28, 2018
The surprisingly successful addict. During her battle with alcohol, Leslie Jamison got prestigious degrees, sold a novel, and took the world by storm... more »
(http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/leslie-jamison-the-recovering-addiction-memoir.html)

Baffled cows, depressed does, and conniving roosters. Science paints an ever-fuller picture of the inner lives of animals. But are we any closer to understanding
their minds?... more » (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/cows-character-animal-behaviour/)

Our old photos follow us online, and it’s become increasingly difficult to achieve distance from the past. That’s changed our politics and, perhaps, our
thinking... more » (https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n06/tom-crewe/short-cuts)
March 27, 2018

Ian Buruma as a young man: From 1975 to 1981 he lived in Japan, appearing in whiskey ads and on stage wearing only a scarlet jockstrap... more »
(https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/25/ian-buruma-tokyo-romance-fascist-rhetoric-brexit-trump-hitler-jockstrap)

Fatalism is a permanent temptation of politics. Optimistic fatalism competes with the pessimistic variety. Democracy requires finding a way between them... more »
(http://bostonreview.net/politics-philosophy-religion/david-runciman-fatalism-freedom-and-fight-americas-future)

For James Wood, the novel is “the slayer of religions.” Rationalist writers like Ian McEwan agree — they want their craft to be more scientific, less spiritual. Is
it?... more » (https://thepointmag.com/2018/criticism/can-there-be-an-atheist-novel-ian-mcewan)
March 26, 2018

Nautilus has asked scientists what they would be if they weren’t scientists. The most popular response: Filmmaker. How to explain this interest?... more »
(http://nautil.us/issue/58/self/why-do-so-many-scientists-want-to-be-filmmakers)

Don't underestimate the power of an impertinent question. That’s what drove Oriana Fallaci, whose interview subjects usually regretted giving her the time. “Being
a journalist means being disobedient”... more » (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/oriana-fallaci-the-journalist-the-agitator-the-
legend/2018/03/22/aecdd474-2dff-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html?utm_term=.05ea77390151)

In Shakespeare's time, there were no directors. Plays were performed without scenery, on open stages. It's still something of a mystery what directors do... more »
(https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-invisible-artist/)
March 24, 2018

When artists had jobs. Philip Glass was a plumber; James Dickey, a sloganeer for Coca-Cola. Day jobs provided artists with space for stray thoughts. Can they
still?... more » (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/t-magazine/art/artist-day-job.html)

Each generation of historians conveys the Jewish past in a way that's bound up with its vision of the Jewish future. Those visions generally turn out to be
wrong... more » (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/26/why-jewish-history-is-so-hard-to-write)

When did the sum total of a college’s intellectual value become reducible to its willingness to host controversial speakers?... more » (https://slate.com/news-
and-politics/2018/03/when-campus-free-speech-is-a-marketing-ploy.html)
March 23, 2018
Reading Crime and Punishment today, we are reminded of the need to take willful self-destruction seriously. There is no rationale to human
behavior... more » (https://www.thenation.com/article/the-world-of-crime-and-punishment/)

Is criticism influential? If so, is that influence beneficial or malign? The first answer is yes. The second answer is complicated... more »
(https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/03/what-s-point-book-reviews)

Communing with art won’t make you money, burn calories, or help you network. It may, writes Claire Messud, help you find joy in the superfluous and glory in
each day... more » (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/22/the-time-for-art-is-now/)
March 22, 2018

The mysterious Cormac McCarthy. He’s intensely private about interviews and public appearances. But why, at 83, has he ventured into nonfiction?... more »
(https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/madness-and-civilization-mccarthy/)

“The two ways," Kierkegaard wrote. "One is to suffer; the other is to become a professor of the fact that another suffered.” But few suffered as much as the woman
who loved him... more » (https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/philosophers-make-bad-husbands)

Science is thought to be cold and clinical, art warm and encouraging of wonder. The drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal reveal that divide for what it is:
nonsense... more » (https://thepointmag.com/2018/criticism/humanistic-anatomy-ramon-y-cajal)
March 21, 2018

Profanity was long considered low and dirty, the opposite of the sublime. Then came Philip Larkin, Eileen Myles, and the rise of poetic profanity... more »
(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/146097/reader-discretion-advised)

Many of our best theories are not true in a strict sense, but rather are idealizations. Such concepts, useful in everyday life, are intellectually dangerous... more »
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/as-if-kwame-anthony-appiah/)

"I am sick to death of hearing about Karl Marx. I am sick of his name, his -isms, his undoubted genius, and his 'philosophy.' Most of all, I am sick of his
'relevance'"... more » (https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/i-am-not-a-marxist/)
March 20, 2018

In the room where Mailer and Talese and Capote got drunk, about a dozen people — mostly women — vie to become the next editor of The Paris Review ... more »
(http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/the-paris-review-is-looking-for-the-right-woman.html)

We used to know what people meant when they spoke about someone’s "reputation." Now it's supposedly an elusive concept... more »
(http://www.weeklystandard.com/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-reputation/article/2011957)

Workers get more education; their productivity and income go up. A nation gets more education; its productivity and income go up. Hogwash, says Bryan
Caplan... more » (http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/11/going-to-college-is-selfish)
March 19, 2018
Ivan Ilyin, an apologist for political violence, wrote 40 books. His aim was to advance a moral justification for totalitarianism. It's working... more »
(http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/16/ivan-ilyin-putins-philosopher-of-russian-fascism/)

The notion that history consists of a single grand narrative is almost universally regarded as a comforting myth. But not to Marcel Gauchet ... more »
(https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/age-of-emancipation-marcel-gauchet-democracy-review)

A crisis stalks the modern world: the hunt for manliness. It began in the 19th century and continues to contaminate politics and culture... more »
(https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/17/the-crisis-in-modern-masculinity)
March 17, 2018

The lofty verb "curate" has been adopted eagerly, even anxiously, in a vain attempt to sprinkle fairy dust over something quite ordinary... more » (http://www.iasc-
culture.org/THR/THR_article_2018_Spring_McClay.php)

The bloodiest genre: books by dictators. Mao's Little Red Book,, Gaddafi’s Green Book, Saddam Hussein’s Get Out, You Damned One! ... more »
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-deadliest-books-the-world-has-ever-known/2018/03/07/9abac55a-2076-11e8-86f6-
54bfff693d2b_story.html?utm_term=.5736731318bc)

Whatever happened to alienation? It was once considered central to modern life, the stuff of Sartre, Camus, and Salinger. Now it seems to have vanished... more »
(https://aeon.co/essays/in-the-1950s-everybody-cool-was-a-little-alienated-what-changed)
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4/10/2018 Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate

Alternate view (/alt/)

April 10, 2018

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

Essays & Opinions (/essays-and-opinions/)

Articles of Note (/articles-of-note/)

New Books (/new-books/)

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March 31, 2018

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March 30, 2018

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March 29, 2018

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March 28, 2018

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March 27, 2018

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March 26, 2018

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March 24, 2018

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March 23, 2018

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March 22, 2018

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March 21, 2018

Arts & Letters Daily - Ideas, Criticism, Debate

Arts & Letters Daily - Ideas, Criticism, Debate