At The Nervous Breakdown, Ronlyn Domingue’s honest and thoughtful “My Horrible New York Times Review” is a must-read for any writer who’s been rejected or ridiculed lately (and, really, who hasn’t been?)
On The Emotional Dishonesty of Having a Thick Skin
63 years and 1 day
The Catcher in the Rye is 63 years and 1 day old today and PBS has published an infographic tracing the novel’s complicated route to publication. Pair with Millions essays about rereading Salinger and his three leaked stories.
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George Eliot, Translator of Human Emotions
For the first time in more than a century, a new edition of George Eliot's translation of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics, will be made available.
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Two Davids and The Bone Clocks
Recommended listening: David Naimon interviews David Mitchell about “time, maps, cats,” and The Bone Clocks (which we reviewed here) for Between the Covers.
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Ask Ayn (Rand)
“I took maybe ten more speed pills and sat in a stall and wrote a new chapter of Atlas Shrugged,” writes Ayn Rand (er, um, John Hodgman). “Perhaps twenty-five thousand words, all on toilet paper.”
Canon Fodder
I know, I know – another piece about “the canon.” This one, however, is sure to elicit a response one way or another. A sampling: “There are few (arguably no) female poets writing in Chaucer’s time who rival Chaucer in wit, transgressiveness, texture, or psychological insight. The lack of equal opportunity was a tremendous injustice stemming from oppressive social norms, but we can’t reverse it by willing brilliant female wordsmiths into the past. Same goes for people of color in Wordsworth’s day, or openly queer people in Pope’s, or …”
Contrarian
In 1952, John Steinbeck wrote that Al Capp, the cartoonist and Lil’ Abner creator, might well have been the best writer working in the world at the time. In the Times, Andy Webster reviews a new biography of Capp, which reveals that underneath it all lay “a toxic chip on his shoulder.”
The Anti-Tolkien
Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings: “a pernicious confirmation of the values of a morally bankrupt middle class”? Michael Moorcock thinks so.