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.
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| Illustration by Jon Han |
I’m inspired by The New York Times’ recent “100 Best Books of the 21st Century” to compile my own list. Except my list will be much narrower and more specialized, focusing on my favorite form of writing – essays on art and literature. Each month I’ll pick an essay and try to get at what I respond to and why. A new series then – “10 Best Essays of the 21st Century on Art and Literature” – starting September 7, 2024.
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