What’s a Wordsworth scholar to do when nature offers him no epiphanies?
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
On Optimism and Despair
“In your earlier novels you sounded so optimistic, but now your books are tinged with despair. Is this fair to say?” Zadie Smith‘s remarks upon accepting the 2016 Welt Literature Prize on November 10th, and the question of whether “multiculturalism” is a failed experiment. Read our review of Smith’s latest novel, Swing Time, here.
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“Sunset: bitter orange and almond milk”
Recommended Reading: “Joseph Brodsky in Venice (1981)” by Campbell McGrath, one of the best poets in South Florida.
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Old World Values
Henry James wrote a number of odd things about Jewish and Italian immigrants, but is it fair to call him a racist? In The New Criterion, Stephen Miller argues that it isn’t, recalling the time James spent with immigrants on the Lower East Side.
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Least Favorite “Great Books”
Elif Batuman, Francine Prose, and Lorin Stein are among the critics, authors, and editors who reveal their least favorite “great books.”
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