Feeling inferior and wanting to better myself in the eyes of my peers, when a solicitation for The New Yorker with an educator’s discount came in the post, I jumped on it. Finally I would be conversant in what is happening in the world.
I thought that they would be perfect for the train ride into the WGAS. I would now be able to alternate among long pieces of writing - called books, GRANTA and The New Yorker I have now given up. Even though my subscription runs until sometime mid century, I simply cannot keep up. I have tried everything - took the dozen issues up with me to wander the Rock and came back with ten. I found out that it is not that I don’t have the time, I cannot seem to finish the articles.
Stopping to catch up on my Can Lit - well Newf Lit - I picked up Wayne Johnston’s The Custodian of Paradise. 500 pages and finished it in a week. I am an incredibly slow reader, I manage about 30 pages an hour but all I needed was my trips in and out of Chicago.
Thought that it had something to do with the piece concentrating on one theme. So I tried an issue of Granta, wanting to see if somewhat lengthy but separate pieces by different writers would show some signs of the New Yorker syndrome. Again I read it through - and I think that i remember what I read.
I took the magazine for the writers, I kept hearing about them - mainly on Fresh Air and other NPR Programming - what I have read I like and will help me with my social skills. I never miss, Pamuk, Gopnick, Schjeldahl, et al and the fiction. It is an effort, though. I keep checking to see how many pages are left is this reverse A.D.D?
It seems from most of the articles, that the writers are paid by the word. If it can be said in ten words use 50. I now know the role models for the Chicago Reader.
Having finished The Custodian of Paradise feel that it is time to try to attack the stack of New Yorkers but maybe I’ll pick up Crummey’s The Wreckage first.
Science and Art
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The teaching of the sciences and the arts needs to be conjoined and
sustained from the earliest stages of education. In the Foreward to
Platinotype my frie...
7 months ago
2 comments:
I find that I have a very similar problem. I got the New Yorker in the first place because, waiting at the airport on my way home from NYC, Gopnik had an article about Sarkozy that I thought was pretty good, and I thought, maybe, this would help me stay better informed. I have a hard time keeping up with current events, and get most of my news and information from the fossil. I could read them at school during odd periods of down time.
I think the magazine is for people who have ADD, and I find it is hit and miss what they report. Sometimes it seems like they are selling me the "left lifestyle" we offer here in America, that I dislike as much as the one Time or the National Review sells-a sort of if you think this way than you must buy these things. (Time had an article on the "death of French culture" that Le Monde was not very happy about) I think you are right about the writing, there was an article not too long ago about criminal profiling, and only in the last section did it get interesting, or rather to the point.
There are so many, I feel like I have to wade through a bunch of filler to find something worth while. They are beginning to pile up without notice.
i seem to remember a time when the articles were longer and they were shortened when the NEW YORKER had financial problems – it was about this time that they started using photographs –ugh. supposedly the articles were shortened because of the people magazine syndrome – great line from the BIG CHILL saying something to the extent that an article should be finished while taking a dump. what i found strange for me wasn’t the length but the verbosity i was not looking for superficiality but decent editing. ironic that the issue that i am reading now writes about the editing controversy with raymond carver. picked up the winter fiction issue and am doing well with that but still found my mind wandering with the non-fiction.
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