The Other Fitzgerald’s Fiction

Last week, Kyle Boelte reviewed On Immunity by Eula Biss, delving into its lengthy history of inoculation and public health. At the Harper’s blog, Jeffery Gleaves talks with Biss as part of their Six Questions feature, asking her about Susan Sontag, public versus private danger and the relationship between capitalism and anti-vaccination sentiment.

“With thirteen other diners, the two professors of English first prepared and then made their way through eight courses, including beef broth, haddock, steak, mutton, chicken, and chocolate profiteroles….The dinner was a recreation of one eaten 132 years earlier, in one of England’s grandest country houses. Among the guests at this first dinner was George Scharf, founding director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, a man not especially famous in his own day and virtually unknown in ours.” Love Among the Archives brings us into the world of George Scharf, a bachelor affectionately deemed “The Most Boring Man in the World.”

Thus spoke Martin Amis: “There’s a bit more song in women’s writing, there’s more real sincerity in women’s writing.” Also, apparently women are better at writing sex scenes.

Do you love cats?  Do you love Irish drinking songs? Do you love them together? Apparently, you are not alone. Marc Gunn of the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast has two parody albums devoted to this improbable marriage. Speaking for myself (in the words of the immortal Joe Turner), “I’m like a one-eyed cat, peeping in a seafood store…”

“Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising ‘to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,’ though he was typically vague about his actual plans.” The New York Times‘ Michiko Kakutani writes a review of Volker Ullrich‘s new Hitler biography, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939, so timely it could easily be an op-ed. Just read it. And when you’re done, read this too.