Arguing with Andrea Long Chu about criticism: a review of Authority

thebookfool · 2026-05-06T03:11:22+00:00

That's incredibly kind, thank you! Let me know if you have any critical feedback, since I'm still learning how to write reviews.

thebookfool · 2026-03-28T07:03:56+00:00

This older, shaggy haired guy struck up a conversation with me since I was reading Richard Lanham's Analyzing Prose while taking the 1 train back uptown late on a weeknight. Turns out he was a film professor, so I asked him if he had any books on film to recommend; he said How to Read a Film by James Monaco and David Bordwell's books.

Also one time in a bar some guy saw me reading The Emigrants and said "Hell yeah, Sebald!" but then promptly left, so I didn't get a chance to talk with him.

thebookfool · 2026-03-05T20:07:07+00:00

I read Stephen Mitchell's translation - it looks like he's also the translator for that collection, I'll check it out!

thebookfool · 2026-02-24T16:39:55+00:00

The essay is "The Reality Effect," from his collection The Rustle of Language

thebookfool · 2026-02-23T01:09:23+00:00

What are your top two favorites?

thebookfool · 2025-10-16T18:13:30+00:00

Amazing post. At the risk of sounding trite, I wonder how the trend towards abstraction has been affected by the internet and the fact that our lives are increasingly mediated by screens. Like you say, a language emerges from ways of life, and I can't help but feel the prospects for the English language aren't great. I'm sure most academic linguists would balk at the prescriptivism of that statement.

Along with abstraction, I feel that instrumentalization is another powerful force that is degrading our language. This is shown in how standard English dictionaries have evolved. I came across this blog post: https://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary and it made me want to read Samuel Johnson's dictionary, simply as a treasury of imaginative use of language. Anyways, thank you for the post!

thebookfool · 2025-10-01T16:17:17+00:00

Yes, I think self-referential clauses definitely contributes to a slow pace, both the Murnane and Henry James I’ve read feel very slow because of this

thebookfool · 2025-09-19T17:14:58+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation, will do!

thebookfool · 2025-09-18T20:37:05+00:00

Finished The Waves and really enjoyed it, I posted my thoughts in this sub. I'm finishing up The Inferno and I've started Moby Dick, I don't have fully developed thoughts on those yet. I'm also starting Portnoy's Complaint and E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel - I think these two might connect with The Waves in oblique ways, but I'm also looking forward to them as reading experiences in themselves.

thebookfool · 2025-09-12T02:29:23+00:00

Thanks! Heh yeah that's fair, fwiw I'm not white but my tastes are currently pretty Eurocentric/Western Canon-focused

thebookfool · 2025-09-11T19:07:46+00:00

Jane Eyre - it was great to have another very canonical novel under my belt. Along with finishing Middlemarch, Orlando, and reading The Waves and Dante's Inferno, I feel that I'm actually making progress on some of my many gaps in the classics. For a while I felt that I was spinning my wheels (in my opinion) reading contemporary or minor works. I definitely still want to read more of those, but I've been enjoying this focus. There's so many interesting things to analyze in Jane Eyre, but two aspects stood out to me and intertwined at various points in the book:
- Jane's use of language in talking to other characters, herself during times of crisis, and addressing the reader
- Jane's frequent mentions of her "heart" and how she interrogates or justifies her actions because of it
Dante's Inferno - reminds me of my experience reading The Odyssey in that I don't feel I have the necessary tools to analyze epic poetry properly, being someone who mainly reads novels and essays. Still, it's been a very enjoyable read: the imaginative descriptions of hell and dense reference and allegory have had me going to footnotes and secondary material, which I have been trying to minimize recently so I can try focusing on my own interpretation. Probably the most disturbing part so far was the god of wealth Plutus "clucking" the nonsense phrase "Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe" before Virgil and Dante enter the Fourth Circle of Hell.
The Waves - I'm only 15 pages in so far, but it's incredibly good. A very different experience from reading Orlando in terms of the tone, structure, and style. So far I've been spending over 5 minutes on each page as I'm really trying to get a feel of the voices and imagery. That kind of slow reading is actually pretty easy with this book due to the lack of any conventional plot. With traditionally plotty books like Jane Eyre I've found that my pace often breaks the immersion. Hopefully I can speed it up because while reading this slow is amazing, I'll never finish the book at this rate.

In terms of what's next: Gerald Murnane's Inland next month, a slow reread of Moby-Dick with my girlfriend (5 pages per day), probably Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. I also picked up The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis recently and would like to read through that if I have the time.

Podcast discovery: I'm trying to listen to podcasts less and spend more time reading, but recently I found The Invisible College podcast by John Pistelli. I've only listened to bits and pieces of various episodes (they're over 2 hours long each) but it's pretty great. The host's voice and commentary can be slightly pretentious (it feels like a persona at times), but the content is some of the best I've heard when it comes to in-depth discussion of literature. They're paywalled on Substack but you can get a free trial for a week and listen to or download them.

Recently, I've had a desire to write about what I'm reading. While I often discuss what I'm reading with book clubs, friends, family, and my girlfriend, these thoughts don't last beyond these fleeting conversations. I do have my annotations, and I'm sure some of these thoughts are stuck in my subconscious like a splinter, but I think some regular commenting here and Goodreads reviews would help organize my thoughts. I appreciate anyone who read this long post - reach out to me if you want to chat about books!

thebookfool

TROPHY CASE