Further thoughts on everyday drinking, from Sir Kingsley Amis, who settles the question of regional whiskey spellings and marvels at the fortitude of the gunslingers of yore: Whiskey in the USA has a long, colourful history. (Note that it is indeed spelt with an “e,” along with Irish whiskey — the Scotch and Canadian varieties are both plain whisky.) One . . .
“There is no historical figure who fills me with as much frustration as does Alice James. Whiny, petulant, bratty, arrogant, useless Alice James. And yet I cannot stop reading about her.”
According to the nice man handing out tracts in the subway station below my workplace, the world is going to end on my birthday next year. (Details.) As someone prone to equal parts self-loathing and self-absorption, and raised in a constant state of Rapture-readiness, I can’t say I’d be surprised. Either way, and I hope you’ll indulge me in this . . .
Andrew Gallix offers the ideas of Alain Robbe-Grillet, whose nouveau roman inspired Muriel Spark, among others, as a rejoinder to David Shields’ (reductive) Reality Hunger.
CJR’s Michael Shapiro contends that the “modern age of Journalism as Literature” began in 1957 with the publication of Cornelius Ryan’s D-Day retelling, The Longest Day. (Via & via.)