The Bloodiest, Most Stomach-Turning Book You’ve Ever Read
“All of European literature springs from a fight,” says a Classics professor in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. He’s talking about Homer’s The Iliad, and what a nasty little story it is. A few lines from Book 4, during the first major battle scene between the Trojans and the Achians, offers a sanguine taste: Then fate fell upon … Continue reading
What Google Thinks of the Great Books
Google autocomplete is where word association meets global group-think. Renee DiResta of the no upside blog recently asked Google “Why is [State] so” and let the search engine fill in the rest. Jim Romenesko did the same thing with major media figures. The results are both amusing and unsurprising. The New York Times and NPR are liberal; Fox News is biased; … Continue reading
The Dark Knight Rises While Comic Books Sink
Bats, fire, and ice. The title screens of the three films in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, collectively, offer an Easter egg homage to the comic books that inspired them. The first in the series, Batman Begins, offers a limned glimpse of the symbol within a flurry of bats across a yellow sky. The sequel, The Dark Knight, shows the same image, except in … Continue reading
Reading Emerson, writer, with Emerson, dog
There is a concept in statistics called the alignment of random points, where a series of lines and points will randomly intersect, sometimes with multiple ones meeting in the same place. Mathematicians cite this phenomenon when arguing that random chance can produce startling coincidences that would otherwise be attributed to divine providence or magic. Looking … Continue reading
New book! Middlemarch by George Eliot
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. And with this inauspicious beginning we tackle the next book in the Master List, Middlemarch by George Eliot. Here are the details on the novel. Pick up a copy… if you dare. Full title: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial … Continue reading
Letters Republic 