Anything Can Happen
I don’t think I understand what Don Quixote is about, and I don’t think anybody knows what Don Quixote is about. —Keith Dewhurst, author of the...
‘The Lucky Ones’
My maternal grandparents were people who had suffered. Even in my earliest memories, their faces are deeply lined, their hair sparse. My grandfather, a tall man,...
Are the Kids All Right?
In 1972, when Jonathan Franzen was thirteen, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that parents in his town were worried: high school kids in Webster Groves were...
What Is the N.E.D.’s Mission?
To the Editors: We were very surprised to read the inaccurate and misleading description of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in “Ortega in His Labyrinth”...
The Storyteller
He told friends his first novel had been accepted for publication when it hadn’t; he said he was “at home” in Vienna before he’d ever gone...
Country House Equality
To the Editors: Bursting with superiority, Linda Colley regretfully concedes that “images of dead aristocrats and their gilded houses and collections can still possess an appeal”...
They Ask Me
why the newflawless birdswired to perfectionwhose beauty song flight lifthover settle youcannot tell fromthose not coming back are not thesame, whosefeathertips shineas if in the old...
The More Fraught the Better
What is the nature of the relationship between music and words, whether in opera, song, or any other art form that brings them together? Are they...
‘Who Designs Your Race?’
In 1925 the Mexican philosopher, writer, and former education minister José Vasconcelos published an essay that was as consequential as it was absurd. “La raza cósmica”...
