The below is from the radio program “Bookworm” (4/11/96) with Michael Silverblatt. It is an interview with David Foster Wallace about Infinite Jest and this snippet focuses on the structure of the novel (and the…
Browsing Category Books
Ellen Willis Is Essential
About a year ago there was a very dismissive review written by Lisa Levy published in the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) of the essay collection The Essential Ellen Willis (“Irritated Critics“) . Ellen Wills is a wonderful writer…
The Work of Language
This is from Dan McCall’s preface to the Norton Critical ed start the treatment of Sidenafildevono be informed tadalafil online There are also emerging species in other parts of the body, for which. ⢠Implement…
Let No One Be Called (Updated: Audio)
Let No One Be Called (3:11) Perhaps it is better to have no legends. Let there be no letters composed into rigid words. Let no words be graven onto replicating presses. Let the forms be broken…
The Custom House: Louis Agassiz with Christoph Irmscher
Episode 2 is now available for download: Agassiz, Inc. Please share far and wide, early and often. Thanks! This week I speak with biographer Christoph Irmscher about the legacy of Louis Agassiz, one of the…
The Money Virtue As American Rational Religion
The most virtuous and honest character in Dickens’ Hard Times, Stephen Blackpool, often confronts the confusion, ambiguity, paradox, and unfairness of “interests” with an aggrieved and exasperated cry that “it’s all such a muddle.” Even…
Training in Belief and Reason
On the a.m. dog-walk I listened to a podcast regarding, primarily, the “will to believe.” (“Psychological Anthropology” on Entitled Opinions) The author/academic (Tanya Luhrmann) interviewed has written at least two titles on modes of belief,…
Calculable Obligations: Motivations of Money and Technology
Debt, that is, as opposed to a promise, is a calculable obligation. I was reading a review of two books on the current state of global indebtedness in the London Review of Books (“Forgive Us…
My Favorite Book
On a job application for a teaching position one is asked to write a one-page essay on “my favorite book.” Here’s what I’ve got. Thoughts? Do you have a favorite? If so, can you let…
The Dystopian Immorality of The Hunger Games
So, I’ve finished The Hunger Games. The trilogy. I’m not sure what to say about it. I found it always vaguely unsatisfying and too easy with its killing. It tries to subvert this by the…