And that’s the problem with the book. Understanding something and mastering it aren’t such different processes, and the reader may want nothing more than to beat a fifteen-year-old wunderkind meme-maker from Alabama at her own game. But ultimately, we are asked to head back in the same direction we came from. There is no Celestial City, no Holy Grail, no resting place—we just have to hope that the journey has made us wiser, as we head back down into the latter-day Slough of Despond.
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It's a long time since I've come across such sloppy uncommunicative writing. "Celestial city", "tadpoles", "memes"? Sorting through my garbage offers a more coherent story than reading this piece.
Is the author really an editor at Harpers? Or a high-school student on summer work experience?
Why the hell did Roland Soong link to it?
Posted by Osprey on Sun 5 Jul 2009 at 04:42 AM
It's clear from the second sentence that the author of the book under review is an editor at Harper's--not the reviewer herself. "Celestial City" is an allusion to John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which is clarified in the third sentence. As for "tadpoles" or "memes," they're both in the dictionary and hardly uncommon.
Posted by James Marcus on Thu 9 Jul 2009 at 02:55 PM
It's an interesting experiment to see how ideas spread. Why not? Surely the author wanted to tell society something very important. At least it seemed so for him. But telling the truth I'm not really fond of such books....
Denny., Wood burning fireplaces
Posted by Denny on Sat 14 Nov 2009 at 07:23 AM