Politics and the Novel: a symposium. “We asked a

number of writers to consider the following questions:

Which novel (or novels) prompted (or deepened) your own political

awakening? How old were you when you read it and what effect did it have

upon you? Do you think the novel today is able to embrace or sustain a

deliberately political purpose consistent with a writer’s aesthetic or artistic

obligations? Which two or three political novels (past or present) do you

regard as exemplary, and why?” LA Times

So film critic Stanley Kauffmann loves an old foreign film only to find that he panned it in a review forty years ago. Reflecting on the critic’s changes of heart, he finds himself in good company.

The plain,

discomfiting fact is that every one of us who has

watched plays and films or read books or listened to

music or looked at painting and architecture is, in some

measure, self-deceived. Filed away in the recesses of

our minds are thousands of opinions that we have

accumulated through our lives, and they make us think

that we know what we think on all those subjects. We

do not. All we know is what we once thought, and any

earlier view of a work, if tested, might be hugely

different from what we would think now.

The New Republic

‘”There’s a thin line between a surgeon and a serial killer”.

Frantic Russian Effort to Rescue Crew of Sub. I can’t imagine many more gruesome ways of dying. One almost hopes no one is conscious on the sub to anticipate their impending freezing and suffocation. New York Times

Road Warriors With Laptops. Using bumper-to-bumper traffic constructively.

“If you’re in the office or your apartment, there are at

least 15 things you could be doing, but in the car, there’s

nothing else to do but focus on the call. Plus you’re moving

forward. Mentally, it puts me in the zone, and I can really

concentrate on the phone.” New York Times

Seeing Pessimism’s Place in a Smiley-Faced World. Some psychologists have ‘had enough of the “tyranny of the positive attitude” which prescribes cheerfulness and optimism as a formula for

success, resilience and good health, and equates negativity

with failure, vulnerability and general unhealthiness…While positive thinking has its advantages, they argue, a

little whining now and then is not such a bad thing.

Pessimism, in some circumstances, may have its place. And

the unrelieved pressure to be upbeat, they assert, may gloss

over individual needs and differences, and may make some

people feel worse instead of better.’ New York TimesI’m reminded of what Douglas Adams said:

For a moment, he felt good about this.

A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it.

Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling

good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night.

(So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish)