Prufrock

It happens every year now: long, heavily-linked end-of-year book lists with the “best” 100 books of the year, or the 500 books from 2021 that everyone should read, or the year’s 50 most transgressive books. The New York Times, for example, just published it’s “100 Notable Books of 2021.” Publishers Weekly has a list of the top 150 books of 2021, though it also provides a “best of the best” list of 10 books. NPR takes the prize for size so far. It has a list of the 369 “Books We Love” from 2021. Talk about indiscriminate passion. There are some good books on these lists — Francis Spufford’s Light Perpetual, John McWhorter’s Woke Racism. How can there not be when they are so long, which is, of course, one problem with them.

On national holidays In the podcast this week, I talked to Thomas Kidd about the first Thanksgiving. One thing I asked him was whether Thanksgiving was a national holiday or a religious one. His answer was both. I thought about this question again after my wife told me that my daughter, who lives in Canada, was thinking about celebrating Thanksgiving with her husband and some friends this week. If you have ever lived overseas for a significant period, perhaps you’ve done something similar: gotten together with a few expats or some long-suffering locals to eat some turkey or touch off a few fireworks on the Fourth. It sounds like a good idea, and it can be fun, but most people give up on it after a few years. We did.

Modern trauma In the latest issue of Harper’s, Will Self argues that trauma is a distinctly modern phenomenon: I shall be advancing the heretical notion that trauma as we now understand it is not a timeless phenomenon that has affected people in different cultures and at different times in much the same way, but is to a hitherto unacknowledged extent a function of modernity in all its shocking suddenness. By “modernity” — that wench of a word — he means mostly modern technology; that is, technology after the Industrial Revolution. Self quickly makes the distinction between trauma and suffering. Suffering, of course, has always been with us. Western literature is a literature of suffering. Sometimes the suffering is a consequence of ignorant or evil decisions.

The pleasures of detective fiction In the latest issue of The Lamp, B.D. McClay writes: “Detective stories have long been thought of as ‘smart’ genre entertainment, something people openly profess their enjoyment of no matter how status-anxious they are.” It’s true that most people are happy to admit to enjoying detective fiction. The same goes for science fiction, which is surely more “respectable” than romance. Yet, however quick people may be to admit to these pleasures, for some, they remain guilty ones — or at least mere pleasures.

Back at the desk As you can see, if you are reading this, I have decided to bring Prufrock back thanks to the persuasive powers of Dominic Green and Matt Purple at The Spectator’s new World edition of the magazine. I’ll be sending the email three times a week (tell your friends to sign up here), writing a weekly column (read the first one), and hosting a weekly podcast. Send tips or suggestions to micah@thespectator.com. Hate mail should be sent straight to Dominic at editor@thespectator.com. The miracle drug called poetry If you read stuff online, you’ll learn, among other things, that poetry is a miracle drug — balm for all sorts of problems and conditions, irritants and itches.