Thursday, April 18, 2002

Still more on Spies In response to a Well post that Michael Frayn is particularly interested in memory in Spies, I wrote: Yes, memory is a theme of "Spies".  More interesting than his reflections on memory, though, are his intermittent  comments on the human ability to simultaneously entertain contradictory thoughts and beliefs.  I think they're dead on psychologically (and instructive).  And they're central to the plot. Stephen's motivations are only understandable if you accept the explanation that he is operating on multiple incompatible assumptions. For years, I shied away from the Books topic on the Well, but in the last month or so I've been active (for me) in it, and I regret not joining sooner. 11:07:41 AM

On my drop-everything list When the new New Yorker arrived in yesterday's mail, I realized that Malcolm Gladwell is now in the category of "I read everything he writes." Previously, I would put aside whatever I was reading when a new John McPhee or Roger Angell piece appeared. Now I drop everything for Gladwell. Catching up, which I did a while back, was easy because he has collected all of his articles at http:// www.gladwell.com. His book The Tipping Point is now out in paperback form.  I don't rank the latest article--on options trading--that highly, but it won't remove him from my must-read list. (This article is not on the New Yorker site and it hasn't appeared yet on Gladwell's. I'll update this entry when it appears). 10:26:25 AM

© Copyright 2003 Jim Klopfenstein. Last update: 3/14/2003; 11:41:28 AM.