Noteworthy reads from the last week:
"A window on Chaucer’s cramped, scary, smelly world," Sam Leith
"Chaucer had been skeptical of fame and authorial peacocking; and concomitantly of written transmission: his poems had been read for pleasure and amusement to a small group of friends in London. With his exile in Kent, he lost an audience; and so he channelled the companionable orality of his verse into a polyphonic anthology of stories whose audience — the pilgrims — he invented for himself. Lonely, in other words, Chaucer put the audience for his poem into the poem itself."
"The Rhetoric of Cowardice," Kyle Williams
"Cowardice once had something to do with the obligations of community. We used the word when courage faltered and duties were left undone. But now we rarely use or hear it outside of the politics of national security."
"James Thurber Lost Most of His Eyesight to a Tragic Childhood Accident," Danny Heitman
"Because of his poor eyesight, Thurber was sometimes unsure of what he was seeing in his later years, and this fuzziness of perception underscored his sense that the line between fantasy and reality could be tenuous—a feeling that rests at the heart of his stories and cartoons."
"When I Grow Up," Rebecca Mead
"At first glance, the experience offered by KidZania appears to draw on aspects both of symbolic play—the 'let’s pretend' aspect of dressing up as a fireman—and of rule-based play, with its enactment of conformity to civic regulation. But by some definitions the activities at KidZania, however entertaining, barely qualify as play at all."
"To the Office, With Love," Jennifer Senior
"Say what you want about the future of work, but this much is clear: The traditional compact between employers and employees is slowly fading away, and with it, a way of thinking, a way of living, a way of relating to others and regarding oneself that generally comes with a reasonably predictable professional life."
"Hollywood Calling," Christopher Grobe
"Tinseltown’s First Law of Telephone Scenes is about to be put to the ultimate test. There are two films eligible for an Oscar this year that are made entirely of telephone calls: Locke (2013) and The Phone Call (2013). These are obvious star vehicles for Tom Hardy and Sally Hawkins, respectively, and if either is nominated and wins, you can bet Luise’s ghost will be haunting that podium."
"On Edgar Allan Poe," Marilynne Robinson
"Poe’s great tales turn on guilt concealed or denied, then abruptly and shockingly exposed. He has always been reviled or celebrated for the absence of moral content in his work, despite the fact that these tales are all straightforward moral parables."
"Imperfect Tenderness," Tim Hodler
"Satire is an unusual art form, in that it is designed to be misunderstood."