Harold Bloom, the prodigious literary critic who championed and defended the Western canon in an outpouring of influential books that... Read More
When I saw the literary critic Harold Bloom last Wednesday, on the morning of Yom Kippur, something was different: For the first time, he did... Read More
In a time when literature is held to be futile, it is cheering that some literary values persist. One of those values, confirmed by T.S.... Read More
Along with less striking literary tchotchkes, I own a framed picture of Harold Bloom. It was a gift from the late Alice K. Turner, the... Read More
“Since the literary canon is at issue here, I include only those religious, philosophical, historical, and scientific writings that are... Read More
In 2017, in The Hague, the Russian novelist Mikhail Shishkin and I took to the stage to talk about rising authoritarianism. Projected on... Read More
A common Lovecraftian theme is the peril in searching deep within one’s own history for some vindicating truth, as the searcher may... Read More
One of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs’s most audacious marketing triumphs is rarely mentioned in the paeans to his genius that remain a... Read More
Kevin Williamson is the best journalist writing today, anywhere. He is as good as Christopher Hitchens was—possibly even better. Just... Read More
In Pascal’s Pensées, the great polymath refers to a void that man “tries in vain to fill with everything around him . . .... Read More
IT WAS A SPECIAL edition of the Nobel prize in literature. Following the suspension of the award last year in the wake of a sexual-abuse... Read More
Ihave always admired John le Carré. Not always without envy – so many bestsellers! – but in wonderment at the fact that... Read More
A new book profiles the rigors and achievements of New York City's Success Academy. Read More
Over the past two decades, the demise of the printed book has become a familiar story: the digital medium is killing print and destroying our... Read More
In May 1949, a year after the establishment of the state of Israel, the American Jewish literary critic Leslie Fiedler published... Read More
id Susan Sontag write her then-husband Philip Rieff’s first book, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959)? That’s the... Read More
For more than a century, the Nobel Prize in Literature has often been a polarizing spectacle, with critics denouncing the winners as too... Read More
The Swedish Academy announced the winners for the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes for Literature on Thursday, a list that is already courting... Read More
An emblematic piece of fake news propagated during that fateful year 2016 was infamously headlined “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses... Read More
“Just as the Bishop of Oxford refused to consider that he might be descended from an ape,” Tom Holland writes cleverly in the... Read More
Under normal democratic conditions, the path to political success is fairly clear: You try to assemble a majority in favor of your cause or... Read More
Semicolons excite strong feelings among the sort of people who have strong feelings about semicolons. Perhaps you are one of them. On the... Read More
The political philosopher Kenneth Minogue, in his classic study “The Liberal Mind” (1963), memorably compared modern liberalism... Read More
Traveling the Indus valley late in the third millennium BC you would have been awed by two Bronze Age megacities, 320 miles apart,... Read More
“I agree with many of their criticisms of religion,” Melvin Konner writes about the New Atheists— Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens —“. . . but I don’t like their attacks on other people’s faith. I don’t think faith will fade away, nor do I think it should.” Rather than dismiss or ridicule religious faith, Dr. Konner, an anthropologist and medic... Read More
The backdrop of Michel Houellebecq’s novel is by now well established. In this — his eighth — the bleak, essentially nihilistic nature of life is once again only relieved by equally nihilistic humour and sex. From the opening of Serotonin it is clear that we are in safe Houellebecqian hands. About the new anti-depressant that the narrator has been prescribed: ‘The most undesirable side e... Read More
On Aug. 15, 1914, Frank Lloyd Wright was overseeing the final stages of construction at Midway Gardens, a massive entertainment complex on the South Side of Chicago. John, the second of his six children, was helping out on the project, when his father went out to take a phone call. When Wright came back, he looked shocked and had to lean on a table to keep from collapsing. “What’s happened?”... Read More
In Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, Wilfred M. McClay has produced an inspiring exploration of America’s past that is out of step with the fashionably fractured narratives...
