Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Saturday, May 2, 2020

April 20, 2020 Issue


My favourite sentence in this week’s issue is Hannah Goldfield’s “I ate my paneer makhani with a thrillingly bitter lime pickle; with yellow shahi rice, steamed in chicken stock and turmeric; with gobi ka keema, a mix of minced cauliflower and bell peppers cooked down until it’s sweet and pastelike, punctuated by the gentle crunch of freshly ground whole spices” (“Tables For Two: Jalsa Grill & Gravy”). That “thrillingly bitter” is inspired.

The online version of Goldfield’s piece is illustrated by four striking Kyoko Hamada photos, including this eye-catcher:



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