Category Archives: Essays and Opinion

Modern life, we’re told, is out of sync with human evolution. Thus the paleo diet and other fads – all belying the way evolution actually works… more»

In search of timeless art. Hear a song over and over again: the magic fades, the melody grates. What if you discovered an immortal song, painting, poem, novel?…more»

From time to time, the god of fiction deserts Ian McEwan. His disbelief won’t – can’t! – be suspended. Then a detail, a phrase, a story returns him to the fold…more»

In his fiction, James Lasdun specializes in creepy narrators. In his life, has been slandered by a creepy stalker. “The nature of a smear is that it survives formal cleansing”… more»

Paris, May 29, 1913. The curtain opened on “knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas,” Stravinsky recalled. And then “the storm broke”… more»

Stanley Cavell dropped out of Juilliard and joined a philosophy department, but its language was too abstract. He was determined to reclaim fleshy, everyday words… more»

The idea that life has a purpose, a destination, has for 400 years been denounced as antirational nonsense. Yet it endures. Why?.. more»

The Classical Tradition is an impressive work of great ambition. The trouble can be summed up in three words: “The,” “Classical,” and “Tradition”… more»

Moral intensity, bizarre charisma, lack of political imagination: Elaine Scarry is a representative thinker of our time… more»

The English Everyman edition of Wodehouse now numbers 84 volumes. A half-dozen biographies are in print, too. Is there anything more to say? Well, yes…more»