Oct 13, 2022·edited Oct 13, 2022Liked by Andrew Rosa
Sarcasm can make anything seem bad. This piece is funny and dynamic, but I'm not sure whether it has any depth. Personally, I love Eliot without needing to understand his references or assimilate his views on poetry or the world. The Waste Land's dour, sibylline character, like a nightmare in tongues, pleases me to no end--though I have always preferred Prufrock or the Four Quartets precisely because they are less inkhornishly modernist. I can understand your vitriol in response to the goggle-eyed praise lavished upon Eliot, but many people have been deeply moved by The Waste Land for reasons other than shoring up their own pretentiousness against the ruin wrought by common sense...
Well this was enormous fun! I haven’t yet read the New Yorker article (our New Yorkers always arrive a few weeks late), but when I do I will have your magnificent response in my head.
I agree with you about Eliot: He and too many intellectuals (yes, I too was oppressed by the Jacqueses and other French theorists in grad school) perpetrate the myth that in order to be deep we must be miserable, that to be of a sunny disposition is necessarily to be simple-minded, and that to be kind and considerate is to be boring. I think the opposite is true, and that kindness and happiness take courage and intelligence, while misery just tells the same old story the same old way.
Leave Benedict Cumberbatch alone!
Sarcasm can make anything seem bad. This piece is funny and dynamic, but I'm not sure whether it has any depth. Personally, I love Eliot without needing to understand his references or assimilate his views on poetry or the world. The Waste Land's dour, sibylline character, like a nightmare in tongues, pleases me to no end--though I have always preferred Prufrock or the Four Quartets precisely because they are less inkhornishly modernist. I can understand your vitriol in response to the goggle-eyed praise lavished upon Eliot, but many people have been deeply moved by The Waste Land for reasons other than shoring up their own pretentiousness against the ruin wrought by common sense...
Where did you go to college and to grad school?
Well this was enormous fun! I haven’t yet read the New Yorker article (our New Yorkers always arrive a few weeks late), but when I do I will have your magnificent response in my head.
I agree with you about Eliot: He and too many intellectuals (yes, I too was oppressed by the Jacqueses and other French theorists in grad school) perpetrate the myth that in order to be deep we must be miserable, that to be of a sunny disposition is necessarily to be simple-minded, and that to be kind and considerate is to be boring. I think the opposite is true, and that kindness and happiness take courage and intelligence, while misery just tells the same old story the same old way.
Omg this is hilarious
Appreciate the tko
Sassy!!!!
Seems like your real agon here is with Anthony Lane, not Eliot.