From Humanitas, Bruce P. Frohnen on American Culture: A Story. From The New Criterion, "The literary life" at 25: On the state of the literary life a quarter-century after Joseph Epstein wrote on this subject for the inaugural issue. From Slate, On the Road Again: Friends and scholars recall the man behind the myth of Jack Kerouac (and more by Meghan O'Rourke and Walter Kirn). From The Believer, The Late Style of Thomas McGuane: The novelist’s language has become more direct, his terrain more realistic, and his comedy less over-the-top. Where will he go next?
The (Re)Birth of the Classics: A review of Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic by Andrew Dalby; and Sailing From Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World by Colin Wells. A review of Penser sans concepts: fonction de l'epopee guerriere, by Florence Goyet, on how martial epics from three different cultures (the Homeric Iliad, the medieval French Chanson de Roland, and the medieval Japanese Hogen and Heiji monogatari) offer their audiences the intellectual tools to assess complex political situations. From The New Yorker, if you haven’t yet read the Divine Comedy—you know who you are—now is the time, because Robert and Jean Hollander have just completed a beautiful translation of the astonishing fourteenth-century poem.
Divine inspiration: The Italian writer Dante had a huge influence on British art, yet it took us 400 years to discover him. What’s so good about British architecture? Its champions claim it’s the best in the world but the reality is dull, corporate and profoundly uninspired. Britain's historic buildings — some of the jewels in our architectural crown - - are crumbling, not because of a lack of money, but because of a shortage of traditional skills.
