any critic who wants to write something lasting—who believes that criticism can be a species of literature—must write partly out of aggression. Or perhaps a better word is animus, in the sense of a fixed intention, a partiality.
Must animus be mean, though? That's another question. What would it mean to have an edge, but not be mean?...
The coronavirus as a “global event.” This seems intelligent to me, but a bit underbaked. The author doesn’t really explore what it means to be a “global” event. Here’s one feature I wish he had spoken about: the right context for this event is now the globe, not really anything smaller than that. There are local differences, but the differences in national...
People have been "social distancing" me for most of my life. I assume it's because I exude information like the below from my pores. So I guess: be like me! You'll be safe. ;)
When Camus read Weil’s manuscripts after World War Two, and after her death in it, he became “more fully Camus.” Nice piece—and I didn’t know that Camus had edited Weil’s works for Gallimard.
I think I'll have something to say about this curious time in the world--effectively all around the world. Maybe in a few days. For now, I think, we're all just processing stuff. In many ways, we...