What is it
that New York, London and Dublin have in common? They all produce a
literary magazine that reviews books. Paris has one too, but it does
something different, featuring fiction more than reviews. Sydney set
one up in 2013. Other cities have such magazines and this selection
has a very occidental orientation and a focus on English language
books. All have on-line versions and some come in physical forms.
They're all 'good' in the sense that you'll find plenty of readable
material in them.
By way of
illustration for drb.ie, the Dublin one, there's a long essay by Tom
Hennigan, writing from South America, on the opinion writer in The
Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole,
http://www.drb.ie/essays/the-analyst-as-eeyore
Tom
Hennigan's essay is not simply a biography or a style criticism of
the writing of Fintan O'Toole. It's also a sweep through global
capitalism; the role of the intellectual in Ireland and beyond; the
challenges of modernity; the notion that there are some ideas that
are progressive and others that are not and the question as to why we
citizens don't pick the apparently 'progressive' ones. Maybe because
writers like Fintan O'Toole tell us we should and make us feel that
we're thick if we don't.
When Tom
Hennigan uses the word 'power' in his excellent essay, it has the
sense of being a given, as if he's describing something pre-ordained,
rather than something generated everyday in contested engagements by
people aggregated in hierarchies of military, business (often the
same thing), religious, legal and cultural institutions, which
encompass the bulk of citizens, most of whom have no impact on the
activities of the hierarchical institutions. It's an old macro/micro
matter. And a POWER thing.
So are
drb.ie, and all the other such reviews, simply google for monoglot
English-speaking chaise-lounge users? It depends on whether you think
books, in physical or digital forms, remain places to go to when
looking for knowledge, data, information and, occasionally, wisdom.
At least they're clear that the knowledge presented is opinion and
subjective.
The New
York Review of Books (nybooks.com ) is the big one globally. And
it knows it.
What
has made The New York Review of
Books successful, according to The
New York Times, is its “stubborn refusal to treat books,
or the theatre and movies, for that matter, as categories of
entertainment to be indulged in when the working day is done.”
And, from
the chaise lounge image of idle old-timey leisure, it's a short step
to intellectual snobbery, readily taken by nybooks.com which was set
up to be a review
in
which the most interesting and qualified minds of our time (says
who?) would discuss current books and issues in depth.
and
a
literary and critical journal based on the assumption that the
discussion of important books (eh?)
was itself an indispensable literary activity.
The other
'big' one is lrb.co.uk, coming out of London, both on-line and in
physical form at a hefty subscription cost (an appeal to Santa and
other benefactors may be required). The whiff of intellectual
snobbery can rise heartily from this particular chaise-lounge when
they write about themselves
Since
1979, the London Review of Books has stood up for the tradition of
the literary and intellectual essay in English.
And
A
typical issue moves through political commentary to science or
ancient history by way of literary criticism and social anthropology.
So, for example, an issue can open with a piece on the rhetoric of
war, move on to reassessing the reputation of Pythagoras, follow that
with articles on the situation in Iraq, the 19th-century super-rich,
Nabokov’s unpublished novel, how saints got to be saints, the life
and work of William Empson, and an assessment of the poetry of Alice
Oswald.
Every
reader is allowed a minimum of two who?s with the above paragraph.
Perhaps
snobbery, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and snobs are
best met with the rejoinder f- - k 'em. On
we get with the interest in literature and the search for knowledge
via google, the telly, other people and books, as reviewed in drb.ie
and elsewhere.
In drb.ie
you'll find long-form essays and shorter reviews of newly published
books; blog entries ranging over a number of fields and news of
events and literature-related matters. The editors say their ambition
is
to
promote analysis and ideas by reflecting on international and Irish
themes and, where appropriate, on their interaction.
And all
free to an on-line subscriber.
drb.ie? Highly recommended.
others?
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