just chiming in to say i really dug your weather review! not generally a fan of books about academics in brooklyn or the anhedonic/narcotized writing style you brought up so i had it firmly on the pay no mind list but your review was enough to convince me to put it on hold at the library.
For what it's worth, I would like to express my support for the Offill review. I generally like your book reviews and I'm going to read her work based on your recommendation.
Don’t worry about lack of subscriber only posts. I pay to support your writing, not for exclusive content. I want all your stuff to be widely read, even when I disagree. I’m hoping others feel the same.
I think you should write about anything that seems to you to be worth writing about. I find pretty much all of your articles thoughtful and thought-provoking.
One thing I still find a little puzzling about you (off topic) is that you still call yourself a Communist despite repeatedly demonstrating a very clear, non-rosy-colored view of human nature. As I see it, human nature is one of the big problems with Communism in practice. Far from creating a classless society, the political leadership ends up becoming a new elite not really that different from the one it replaced -- possibly even worse, since it hides its abuses behind pretty ideals and censorship.
The reason not to mark up all the errors in students' essays is not to protect them from emotional injury, it is to keep yourself in the job. If I corrected every error in my students' papers, I would never do anything else but teach and mark, and then I would quit the profession.
Thank you for naming my "Ebla to E-Books: The Preservation and Annihilation of Memory" as "Substack of the Week." All of a sudden a whole lot of people subscribed and I didn't know why. I mean it doubled (!) the number of people subscribing! I'm so glad you like the footnotes.
Please add me to the list of readers who loved your Offill review—I had never been particularly interested in reading her, but you have convinced me. And I loved your takedown of the numb, depleted style of certain writers. (Why is Rachel Cusk such a critics’ darling anyway? It is a mystery to me!)
I just finished reading Roth for the first time (Portnoy’s Complaint). THAT one has been sitting on my shelf for almost 30 years and I’d never got more than a few pages in. It makes you cringe, and he never lets up.
It ended up being as good as promised. I wish I hadn’t taken so long to get through it. I’ll tackle American Pastoral later this year.
Tonight, though, I’m hungover as shit. Nobody told me that when I got older I’d no longer be able to drink without being crippled the next day. So I need a new video game. An RPG preferably, but not required. Anyone have an obscure favorite they can recommend? I’ve probably played most of the big RPGs
Really enjoyed the review of Weather. I spent the last three or four years reading Victorian novels almost exclusively—Vanity Fair and Little Dorrit tripped some kind of wire in my brain and I ended up unable to read anything except Trollope, Thackeray, and Dickens—so I have absolutely no idea what contemporary fiction is like since I finished my ill-advised MFA in 2013.
I think you'd really like Jane Eyre! It's a marvel.
just chiming in to say i really dug your weather review! not generally a fan of books about academics in brooklyn or the anhedonic/narcotized writing style you brought up so i had it firmly on the pay no mind list but your review was enough to convince me to put it on hold at the library.
For what it's worth, I would like to express my support for the Offill review. I generally like your book reviews and I'm going to read her work based on your recommendation.
Don’t worry about lack of subscriber only posts. I pay to support your writing, not for exclusive content. I want all your stuff to be widely read, even when I disagree. I’m hoping others feel the same.
I think you should write about anything that seems to you to be worth writing about. I find pretty much all of your articles thoughtful and thought-provoking.
One thing I still find a little puzzling about you (off topic) is that you still call yourself a Communist despite repeatedly demonstrating a very clear, non-rosy-colored view of human nature. As I see it, human nature is one of the big problems with Communism in practice. Far from creating a classless society, the political leadership ends up becoming a new elite not really that different from the one it replaced -- possibly even worse, since it hides its abuses behind pretty ideals and censorship.
I'd be interested in your views on Mitch Daniels and your Purdue experience.
The reason not to mark up all the errors in students' essays is not to protect them from emotional injury, it is to keep yourself in the job. If I corrected every error in my students' papers, I would never do anything else but teach and mark, and then I would quit the profession.
Thank you for naming my "Ebla to E-Books: The Preservation and Annihilation of Memory" as "Substack of the Week." All of a sudden a whole lot of people subscribed and I didn't know why. I mean it doubled (!) the number of people subscribing! I'm so glad you like the footnotes.
Please add me to the list of readers who loved your Offill review—I had never been particularly interested in reading her, but you have convinced me. And I loved your takedown of the numb, depleted style of certain writers. (Why is Rachel Cusk such a critics’ darling anyway? It is a mystery to me!)
I just finished reading Roth for the first time (Portnoy’s Complaint). THAT one has been sitting on my shelf for almost 30 years and I’d never got more than a few pages in. It makes you cringe, and he never lets up.
It ended up being as good as promised. I wish I hadn’t taken so long to get through it. I’ll tackle American Pastoral later this year.
Tonight, though, I’m hungover as shit. Nobody told me that when I got older I’d no longer be able to drink without being crippled the next day. So I need a new video game. An RPG preferably, but not required. Anyone have an obscure favorite they can recommend? I’ve probably played most of the big RPGs
Really enjoyed the review of Weather. I spent the last three or four years reading Victorian novels almost exclusively—Vanity Fair and Little Dorrit tripped some kind of wire in my brain and I ended up unable to read anything except Trollope, Thackeray, and Dickens—so I have absolutely no idea what contemporary fiction is like since I finished my ill-advised MFA in 2013.
I think you'd really like Jane Eyre! It's a marvel.
Would love to hear your thoughts on MFAs and whether or not you think they're worth it.