Best of On the Web: Number 3
August 14, 2007It’s been even longer than I thought (two months!) since the last time I did this, so I’ll keep it short, recent and Potter-free.
- I am planning on letting my subscription to the New Yorker expire, since most of their content is online, but the news that James Wood will be joining the staff is forcing me to reconsider.
- I’m not very good at finding veiled sex in older novels, so the Little Professor’s “Handy-Dandy Guide to Code Words” in Victorian fiction is most helpful.
- Best. Post. Ever. from The Existence Machine
- If you’re wondering what postmodernism is, you could do worse than read litlove’s fantastic answer to the question: What is Postmodernism?
- I agree with the judgment of this “classic review” of To Kill a Mockingbird which appeared in the Atlantic in 1960.
- From Larval Subjects, a deep and thought provoking post on existing.
- And finally, the god-awful results of the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest are in. Here’s my favorite:
The poetry teacher’s bullet-riddled body lay sprawled on the veranda floor like a patient etherized upon a table.
Ooooo that post from The Existence Machine really was excellent. It clarified a point I had made recently about how it took me quite a while to get into the habit of rereading and close reading in my leisurely reads, and how both habits, in a sense, were delayed by my narrow diet of 19th C novels when I wanted meaty readings. They really do pull you along (at least initially) on the momentum of plot and character alone.