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The Elephant in the Brain
The Elephant in the Brain (2017) is at times an uncomfortable read, but well-worth it for anyone willing to undertake its introspective incursion. Programmer Kevin Simler (of the fascinating Melting Asphalt blog) and economist Robin Hanson explore why we are prone to self-deception about our motives, and how this deception can shed light on otherwise inexplicable […]
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The Reivers
Faulkner’s final novel The Reivers, written in 1962, is something of an uncharacteristic masterpiece. The narrator, Lucius Priest, is an old man recounting adventures from when he was an eleven-year-old boy, in 1905, just as automobiles first arrived in Jefferson, Mississippi. His grandfather, Boss Priest, who owns one of the few cars then in existence, goes […]
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Kudos
After discovering her piece Aftermath a few years ago, and having revisited it several times since, I’ve been an adherent of Rachel Cusk’s. I am tempted to re-read that piece now, but I know that its stark, hypnotic beauty would move me too much and prevent me from writing anything about her latest book. Kudos is the third in a […]
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Circe
Madeline Miller’s Circe is not a bad book, but it is disappointing in a number of ways. It takes for its first-person hero the witch of Aiaiai, Circe, a daughter of the sun-god Helios, turner of men into pigs, and eventual lover of Odysseus. It is a sort of riposte to The Odyssey so it’s unsurprising that […]