One of David Foster Wallace’s students has posted a copy of the syllabus Wallace used to teach an undergrad course on “Literary Interpretation.” The document makes more honest literary sense than most of the overbearing, over-reaching tributes we’ve had thrown at us since Wallace’s suicide: The goals of this section of E67 are to survey… Continue reading »
Archives for September 2008
Monthly archives for September, 2008
What’s That Skirring I Hear?
It’s the sound of word lovers mobilizing to save their favorite bits of under-used English from the dustbin of diction. From the Times (U.K.): Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words,… Continue reading »
As If the Hurricanes Weren’t Bad Enough
The National Trust has been assessing the damage that Gustav and Ike inflicted on historic structures in Galveston and elsewhere (even as far north as Plano, Illinois). More upsetting is this news from New Orleans: The Trust also reports increased pressure from the Nagin administration in New Orleans to demolish historic properties damaged by Hurricane… Continue reading »
Save the Pub Sign
Hoist a pint to the pub sign, now an endangered species: The painted pub sign, one of the oldest popular visual arts traditions in Britain, is locked in decline. That is the fear of conservationists who hope to alert pub chains and breweries to a “catastrophic” loss of the traditional skills involved and a failure… Continue reading »
Note to NYTBR Editors
Surprise us sometime by not putting Philip Roth’s latest on the cover of the section. It would be okay. Really. (For yesterday’s section, I’d have gone with either the review of Asne Seierstad’s The Angel of Grozny or the review of Marilynne Robinson’s Home. Either would have been a more refreshing choice than Indigation.)
