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 Galchen, 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.
My three favorite travel books are John McPhee’s Coming into the Country (1976), Ian Frazier’s Great Plains (1989), and Edward Hoagland’s Notes from the Century Before (1969). But I feel I don’t I know them well enough, especially at the formal level. Over the next year, I propose to reread them – immerse myself in them, if that’s possible. And I’ll blog about it as I go. So a new series then – “3 for the Road,” starting January 1, 2021.
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ReplyDeleteGreat! Looking forward to it. Which book will start? I will try to accompany you in reading. (P.S. I loved the series with the best of the decade.)
Thanks for your positive feedback. I appreciate your interest. I think I’ll start with "Notes from the Century Before." I might intermix my readings – a bit of Hoagland, then a pinch of McPhee, followed by a dash of Frazier, and so on, until I finish all three books. It’s an odd way to do it, but the idea is to keep all three books fresh and interactive in my mind as I go.
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