Accountancy and Authority
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Back Bay Books, 2012. Paperback, 597 pages, $18. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet At a certain point you realize that David Foster Wallace is as much a horror writer as Stephen King, and the monsters under his bed are twins: absorption...
It Will Mean What the Words Say!
The Essential Works of Thomas More Ed. by Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith. Yale University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 1520 pages, $100. Reviewed by Kenneth Craycraft Three scenes from A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt’s play about the elevation and martyrdom of...
Depths of Hell, Heights of English
Paradise Lost: A Primer by Michael Cavanagh. Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Paperback, 256 pages, $30. Reviewed by Casey Chalk There’s great value in reading fictional literature that imagines hell, devils, and the origin of evil—and it’s not just because...
What Lasch Knew
The Topeka School: A Novel by Ben Lerner. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. Hardcover, 304 pages, $27. Reviewed by Jon K. Lauck Ben Lerner has written an intense new novel that will mark our cultural moment for some time, even in these strange days, but in ways that,...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!