November 2007
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Philip Roth has written some wonderful books but this particular job isn't one of them. Portnoy's Complaint is nothing more than a comedian's shtick — the undisciplined efforts of a borscht circuit comic "working blue." Poor Philip Roth. He set to be the heir of Lenny Bruce but accidentally fathered that unfortunate by-blow, the egregious…
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It's easy to forget that our immediate forebears were absurdly prudish. Consider the case of William Empson, who ran afoul of the sex police in the late 1920s. Empson may be the most influential literary critic of the previous century. All "close reading" was pioneered by him. Seven Types of Ambiguity, written when Empson was…
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"Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is," said the Great One, famously. There you have it: perfect advice for hockey players. It goes without saying that Gretsky's sentence applies equally well to entrepreneurs, intellectuals, artists, and in fact, to anyone who has to cope with a world in continual…
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Annals of the Parish is another book that I’ve waited far too long to read. Purporting to be the reminiscences of Mr Micah Balwhidder, minister of Dalmailing in Ayreshire, Scotland between the years 1760 and 1810, it’s the most charming and friendly novel that I’ve encountered in many a day. The industrial revolution, with all…
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It sometimes happens that you meet a perfectly decent, intelligent person with whom you cannot conduct a satisfactory conversation. He doesn’t know when you’re serious or when you’re being ironic, doesn’t get your jokes, misses your allusions and references, challenges your assumptions, and repeatedly asks, "What exactly do you mean?" You and he are just…