In Mary McCarthy‘s The Groves of Academe, John Bentkoop, a faculty member at Jocelyn College, offers his take on his beleaguered colleague, Henry Mulcahy, who has set in motion schemes of varying deviousness in his bid to hang on to his precious position after receiving a dismissal notice from the college president: Hen has a remarkableContinue reading “Mary McCarthy On Henry Mulcahy’s Selfishness”
Tag Archives: narcissism
Lord Byron on the Writerly Compulsion
In Oryx and Crake, Crake quotes Lord Byron:¹ What is it Byron said? Who’d write if they could do otherwise? Something like that. Who indeed? Byron’s supposed description² of writerly obsession is by now familiar to us: writers write because they have to, they must, they can do little other; their activity is as much compelledContinue reading “Lord Byron on the Writerly Compulsion”
Sherry Turkle on the Documented Life
Sherry Turkle articulates, quite gently, a familiar complaint about–among other things–the smartphone-and-selfie obsession: A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it shares something with all the other ways we break up our day, when we text during class, in meetings, at the theater, at dinners with friends. And yes,Continue reading “Sherry Turkle on the Documented Life”
The ‘Narcissism of the True Artist’ and Reading What One Writes
In his seminal Nietzsche: The Man and his Philosophy, RJ Hollingdale, after noting that Nietzsche made note of some forty-six poems composed between 1855 and 1858, goes on to say: The sign that he was a born writer, however, is not to be found in them, but in a remark in Aus Meinem Leben [From My Life],Continue reading “The ‘Narcissism of the True Artist’ and Reading What One Writes”
Samir Chopra 