Articles in Culture and Criticism
I can’t decide if I liked it or not. It’s well written and moves along, but I feel like a lot got left out — which is weird, given how much got left in. …
I liked the movie better, actually; Hinton’s narrators have a disingenuous way of talking about themselves that gets a bit irritating after a while, and it works better as film melodrama. Also, I used …
A sweet baseball reminiscence that could stand a tighter, cleaner edit — and unless you’re a Red Sox fan and/or you know a good deal about the game pre-1950, I don’t know that it’s the …
John Gregory Dunne’s dry prose is such a good fit with the movie industry; he’s really able to take the wind out of it, but without sounding bitter or mean. Good time capsule, good …
It’s meticulously researched, and some of the descriptions made me nauseated enough that I had to put the book down to read something else for a little while — but there’s still something irritating about …
The book is good — Styron’s prose is outstanding — but it’s too long; I like the movie better, because Styron does tend to get into sidebars that don’t feel necessary to the story, and …
The writing is both very precise and wildly overwrought, particularly the dialogue, which…my God, even a Lassie episode is closer to how kids really talk, and the father’s lengthy pontificating in the library was just …
Very sharp and funny, particularly the extremely dry and long overdue takedown of Susan Sontag. (9/8/03)
A lovely…what’s the term I want here? “Memoir of the transgender experience,” I guess. In any case, funny and touching in just the right balance, and beautifully written. (9/8/03)
The prose is a little bit clumsy, but if you like media studies, it’s a fab read in an election year. Grab a copy if you can. My newest favorite political joke: “I’d …