If they'd had the moxie to put it on their list - "no, really, it *is* a great book" - I would not have agreed, but would have respected their ability to go against the grain. It was never going to happen.
I've been annoying a lot of people I know by reminding them that JD Vance was a firmly liberal cause celebre 8 years ago and that a lot of people who now claim disgust at him 100% fell for the Hillbilly Elegy trend hook, line, and stinker. It was recommended to me countless times.
My dad watched the movie a year ago, after ignoring the book recommendation from his liberal family members, and now whenever any of them take him out to eat he mock-pretends that he can't figure out what a salad fork is.
that scene kind of drove me crazy, because while there are very real etiquette and behavioral rules that mark you as insider/outsider when you are experiencing social mobility, the fork thing has not been it since 19th century france? It could have been interesting to have a well observed scene showing these awkward dynamics, but it's usually more subtle than "doop dee doo why are there so many forks on this table." in this day and age, the only people who abide by formal rules of etiquette are either extremely old or poorer people trying to climb upwards. also, isn't that scene just taken from Pretty Woman, lol?
I once randomly got invited to a meal where I was definitely the only person there who didn't have family with property on Martha's Vineyard and had ever had a real-deal life-depends-on-it full time job, and it was very awkward, but it wasn't because of the forks. It was way more subtle, like feeling like I had to explain why I had never been to Tulum, why I did not recognize the name of the limited edition porcelain they collected, and why I did not know that Chablis is not a good match for shrimp but a good match for drum.
Is there much difference between the Times’ book reviews and music award shows? They reward obvious and increasingly meh artists, and have not been relevant to the mainstream for decades yet still drive Internet conversations. There is a very specific brand of lit girl/pop culture historian who swears that every other book is a cultural landmark.
A lot of these ‘profound’ novels are only two steps away, intellectually and emotionally, from fanfic.
And the Times as a whole is just a poor man’s Buzzfeed News. Emphasis on poor because you can’t even search for their articles due to shitty UX design. The state of the comments also reflects the failure, IMO; very few readers have opinions more complex than whatever populates a standard Instagram post.
Here is a book from 2016 that the Times absolutely raved about, yet it failed to make their "top 100":
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/books/review-in-hillbilly-elegy-a-compassionate-analysis-of-the-poor-who-love-trump.html
If they'd had the moxie to put it on their list - "no, really, it *is* a great book" - I would not have agreed, but would have respected their ability to go against the grain. It was never going to happen.
ha, yes, this is part of what tomorrow's podcast episode is about.
I've been annoying a lot of people I know by reminding them that JD Vance was a firmly liberal cause celebre 8 years ago and that a lot of people who now claim disgust at him 100% fell for the Hillbilly Elegy trend hook, line, and stinker. It was recommended to me countless times.
My dad watched the movie a year ago, after ignoring the book recommendation from his liberal family members, and now whenever any of them take him out to eat he mock-pretends that he can't figure out what a salad fork is.
that scene kind of drove me crazy, because while there are very real etiquette and behavioral rules that mark you as insider/outsider when you are experiencing social mobility, the fork thing has not been it since 19th century france? It could have been interesting to have a well observed scene showing these awkward dynamics, but it's usually more subtle than "doop dee doo why are there so many forks on this table." in this day and age, the only people who abide by formal rules of etiquette are either extremely old or poorer people trying to climb upwards. also, isn't that scene just taken from Pretty Woman, lol?
I once randomly got invited to a meal where I was definitely the only person there who didn't have family with property on Martha's Vineyard and had ever had a real-deal life-depends-on-it full time job, and it was very awkward, but it wasn't because of the forks. It was way more subtle, like feeling like I had to explain why I had never been to Tulum, why I did not recognize the name of the limited edition porcelain they collected, and why I did not know that Chablis is not a good match for shrimp but a good match for drum.
Which bit of Ferrante was confirmed? That it's Domenico Starnone or that it's him and his wife?
Is there much difference between the Times’ book reviews and music award shows? They reward obvious and increasingly meh artists, and have not been relevant to the mainstream for decades yet still drive Internet conversations. There is a very specific brand of lit girl/pop culture historian who swears that every other book is a cultural landmark.
A lot of these ‘profound’ novels are only two steps away, intellectually and emotionally, from fanfic.
And the Times as a whole is just a poor man’s Buzzfeed News. Emphasis on poor because you can’t even search for their articles due to shitty UX design. The state of the comments also reflects the failure, IMO; very few readers have opinions more complex than whatever populates a standard Instagram post.