The structure of the modern plague novel, all the way to Stephen King’s “The Stand” and beyond, is a series of variations on “A Journal of the Plague Year” (a story set within the walls[…]
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Tag: Books
“the existence of books, no matter how grim the tale, is itself a sign, evidence that humanity endures, in the very contagion of reading”
In the long centuries during which the plague ravaged Europe, the quarantined, if they were lucky enough to have books, read them. If not, and if they were well enough, they told stories. In Giovanni[…]
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“Nudity in art was not ubiquitous in Eretz Yisrael and America, and it is not surprising that we woke up in the 20th century in American and EY and found these things surprising”
In response to the email from the Lakewood scholar, S. commented as follows: Another point which I think needs to be brought up about nude art is just how ubiquitous it was in Europe, statues,[…]
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“Reading on-screen tempts us to see things only through the pinhole of our immediate curiosity”
Reading on-screen tempts us to see things only through the pinhole of our immediate curiosity. I don’t mean to sentimentalize the Reading of Books, but as a practical matter, when you hold a book in[…]
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“The irony of…should be a warning against assuming any kind of simple binary division between resistance and imitation of colonial cultures”
The irony of finding a deeply Hellenized concept of gender at the very heart of a book which strives to present the rabbis as an alternative to (Roman) Hellenistic gender economies should be a warning[…]
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“…in the Clone Wars, even the soldiers on both sides were manufactured goods. The Republic and the Confederacy had been partners in the same corrupt game.”
The Clone Wars were yet another thing to be upset about. Everything about that conflict had been a lie. The Separatists had been this big enemy, and yet when the Empire was declared they’d melted[…]
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“…men exist in a state of perpetual confusion about when, exactly, human females are receptive to the idea of having sex”
What it tells us is this: Women are interested in sex. This may be obvious to women, but, trust me, it is not obvious to men. In fact, it is contrary to everything men are[…]
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“…the landscape in which “Fifty Shades of Grey” has found its audience, with a story almost perfectly suited to this dream: A fantasy of being…”
…our sexual egalitarians don’t want to shut down the party or end the bacchanal. They just want hookup culture to be governed by affirmative consent, for prostitutes to become empowered sex workers, for misogynistic porn[…]
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“A Guide to the Complex is, therefore, such a helpful model for what Modern Orthodox halakhah can be….”
A Guide to the Complex is, therefore, such a helpful model for what Modern Orthodox halakhah can be. The book’s placement of Modern Orthodox and Haredi poskim in conversation with each other is a model[…]
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“there’s something miraculous about books that stops me from tossing them in the garbage”
[P]hysical books — the creepy retronym for the objects formerly known just as books — …take up space. They demand shelves. They can crowd us out and weigh us down. And though no divine injunction[…]
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