The New Republic

Elite '08

389

252

Darin I.

San Francisco, CA

UPDATE (8/13/2007): James Wood will be leaving The New Republic to join the quaint retirement community otherwise known as The New Yorker.  TNR stock takes a precipitous fall.

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The production values of TNR have gone up now that they publish every two weeks (as opposed to every week), although I can't discern any difference in the paper stock.

Franklin Foer (yes, his brother is you know who) has done a good job as Editor-in-Chief.  The articles, as promised, are longer and more involved.  It remains to be seen whether he can maintain this for the duration of his tenure.  Which, in TNR terms, is usually sixteen months.

I don't necessarily agree with their politics (and it is first and foremost a political mag).  I read it because bien-pensant and Harvard Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism (which is, like, THE most pretentious academic title ever) James Wood (not Woods) will drop in from time to time and lob a curt, venomous, and always fascinating review of a current book.  I appreciate his acerbity regarding the sacred cows of our era (Rushdie, Pynchon, Roth...they have all incurred his wrath), and respect his almost Arnoldian dedication to questions of belief, morality, and style in our impoverished era.

Plus this is where Helen Vendler -- a great poetry critic and a sweet, unassuming grand dame -- tore into the posthumous Elizabeth Bishop collection "Edgar Allan Poe and the Jukebox," which accomplished the rare feat of bitchslapping not one but TWO eminences grises of the poetry world: Liz Bishop and editor Alice Quinn (Poetry Editor of The New Yorker).

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