Cartoon by David Pope
Recent links of note:
The Blame for the Charlie Hebdo Murders
George Packer, The New Yorker
The murders are only the latest blows delivered by an ideology that has sought to achieve power through terror for decades.
Scare Tactics: Michel Houellebecq Defends His Controversial New Book
Sylvain Bourmeau, The Paris Review
His controversial new novel depicts a Muslim-run France. Is it bad Op-Ed, election-year pulp fiction, or social critique?
What We Lose if We Lose the Canon
Arthur Krystal, The Chronicle of Higher Education
“A law of diminishing returns kicks in once we stop making distinctions between the great and the good […] Some books simply reflect a deeper understanding of the world, of history, of human relationships, of literature itself than do other books.”
A Top-Notch Middlebrow
Roger Kimball, WSJ
Will Durant’s books made it clear that history was our story.
When T.S. Eliot Invented the Hipster
Karen Swallow Prior, The Atlantic
“My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
Hand-turned in Brooklyn from salvaged brass by artisanal pin-makers”
—The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock*
*Additional line not by T.S. Eliot.
From our pages:
Free Speech Under Threat
Roger Kimball
An overview of the conference “Free Speech Under Threat: How Anglosphere Values Are Being Undermined by Fear, Political Correctness, and Misplaced Concerns about Privacy.”