There are days when the internet is self-evidently
the second-worst thing our species has cooked up for itself. Then there are days like today.
- Surprise! H.P. Lovecraft’s racist contempt included the Irish! Yet another piece that remarks (perhaps, as with Matt Ruff’s adapted-for-TV novel, a touch too lightly?) on the irony of Lovecraft’s still-rising star at this particular cultural moment, given that the single most self-evident feature of the man and his fiction is his racism.
- “Extremity of transgression, in these cases, may actually be interpreted as a sign of conformity.” Over at LARB John Tottenham surveys Heroin Heroism: The Rock 'n' Roll Survivor Narrative.
- Also at LARB another hit of René Girard. Hm: “A generation devoid of Freuds or Nietzsches or Marxes of its own might turn out to be something we will one day regret.” I dunno. GenX was always going to have some trouble with that.
- “Among the literature of China under Mao and since, one of the most perceptive and disturbing accounts I have read is Kang Zhengguo’s Confessions: An Innocent Life In Communist China” — Stephen Jones is blown away. And now so am I.
As always, thank you for the reading recommendations. i enjoyed the John Tottenham article.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that John Philips' autobiography was a classic until reading that article. I googled it just now, and it does look interesting.
Yeah, I'd be curious to give that a closer look too. But talk about sticker shock! Yipes.
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