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In their infinite wisdom, the Los Angeles Review of Books published my review of Helen DeWitt’s very funny second novel, Lightning Rods. Helen DeWitt’s first novel, The Last Samurai, was published in 2000 to almost universally rapturous praise. It sold a hundred thousand copies in English. If literary publishing were a rational enterprise, even along … Continue reading Hurricane Helen (A Review of “Lightning Rods” for the “Los Angeles Review of Books”)

The Believer published my review of Andrew Altschul’s Deus Ex Machina — or rather the character of Sarah Palin as she is depicted in that novel — in September. Andrew Altschul’s second novel, Deus Ex Machina, tells the story of The Deserted, a reality-television program limping into its thirteenth season with low ratings and a … Continue reading Review of a Character: Sarah Palin in Andrew Foster Altschul’s “Deus Ex Machina” (Published in “The Believer”)

The Los Angeles Review of Books published my review of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King alongside a review by Cornel Bonca. In the three months since the publication of David Foster Wallace’s third, unfinished novel, The Pale King — an eternity in the world of professional reviews — plenty of opinions have been offered, … Continue reading Unfinished Form (A Review of “The Pale King” for the “Los Angeles Review of Books”)

(A conversation with Andrew Goldstone originally published on Arcade under the user name “Goldstone and Konstantinou.”) We’ve both been very interested in the sociology of literature, and we’ve both talked about literary-sociological issues on Arcade before; but there’s nothing like coming to grips with a full-blown literary-sociological study. Herewith, then, our discussion of a recent … Continue reading To Norway! On Regionalism and the Reading Class

(Introduction to “The Contemporary Novel” colloquy at Arcade.) Any colloquy on the contemporary novel faces two immediate challenges. We must deal first with our adjective. What do we mean by "contemporary"? The primary sense of the word, according to the trusty OED, is "[b]elonging to the same time, age, or period; living, existing, or occurring … Continue reading The Contemporary Novel

(Crossposted at Arcade.) Mark Bauerlein–author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30) and Literary Theory: An Autopsy–recently released a widely discussed study called "Literary Research: Cost and Impacts" for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. This short study concludes that … Continue reading How to Squeeze the Humanities 101: The Case of Mark Bauerlein

(Crossposted at Arcade.) In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education called "Why We Can’t Teach Students to Love Reading," Alan Jacobs argues that "’deep attention’ reading has always been and will always be a minority pursuit." The inevitable minority status of deep reading "has been obscured in the past half-century, especially in … Continue reading Alan Jacobs and the Rise of the Reading Class