Why humor?: As the year comes to a close, I find inspiration from my math textbook for how to remember it. I will not (“thank god,” I hear you say) summarize the content of a book titled Real Mathematical Analysis. It is enough to say that the first four subheadings of Charles Pugh’s book announce grand ambitions to define “Language,” “Truth,” “Logic,” and “Metaphor and Analogy.” For the philosopher, to dispatch each of these within a page or two would be a stinging insult to all that came before. But Pugh is a mathematician, so he gets away with such things.
The math itself is nothing new. The form of Pugh’s textbook, however, insists on the liveliest possible teaching of this settled subject. Pugh cracks jokes about Keats, presents pictures as proof, and apologizes directly to the reader for his own confusing notations. As an unlikely narrator, he resists the unimpeachable certainty found in many a textbook. Some may lose respect for him, but more will relate to him. Rigor is important, but so is humor, which reminds us to use our intuition. Pugh’s textbook should never be mistaken for a reference book—references promise to stay the same as years pass, to act as extensions of memory. The point is not only to remember the past—we need to tell the story again, in our own way.
The math itself is nothing new. The form of Pugh’s textbook, however, insists on the liveliest possible teaching of this settled subject. Pugh cracks jokes about Keats, presents pictures as proof, and apologizes directly to the reader for his own confusing notations. As an unlikely narrator, he resists the unimpeachable certainty found in many a textbook. Some may lose respect for him, but more will relate to him. Rigor is important, but so is humor, which reminds us to use our intuition. Pugh’s textbook should never be mistaken for a reference book—references promise to stay the same as years pass, to act as extensions of memory. The point is not only to remember the past—we need to tell the story again, in our own way.
Liam Eifert, assistant editor
Blowin’ in the wind: I must confess that until viewing James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, I didn’t like Bob Dylan much—his voice was too grating and his harmonica too shrill. I became much more appreciative of his music after experiencing the film’s thrilling and poignant examination of the qualities that made Dylan an instant cultural icon. Of course, Mangold’s efforts would fall flat if not for the fantastic performance of Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. Often typecast as a pretty boy, Chalamet is almost unrecognizable as Dylan—voice and all.
A Complete Unknown tracks Dylan’s rise from a fresh-faced ragamuffin to controversial superstar during the years of 1961 to 1965. Anointed by his folk music hero Woody Guthrie and shepherded by folk singer Pete Seeger (played by the excellent Edward Norton), Dylan becomes folk music’s darling, capturing the hearts of young fans and musical giants (Johnny Cash and Joan Baez) alike. But he cannot resist the urge to break free of boundaries imposed upon him: much to the chagrin of the folk musicians and women that he charmed, Dylan eventually leaves them behind. Punctuating the narrative are Dylan’s various era-defining songs, but they never feel like the forced musical interludes of some jukebox biopics.
Some will decry the historical inaccuracies of the film (never mind that the real Dylan annotated and approved the script). But do those inaccuracies matter? Dylan himself—or should I say, Robert Zimmerman—reinvented his past. It seems fair that a film chronicling the mythologizing of its subject can do so too. A Complete Unknown reminds us that Dylan will always be an enigmatic figure, frustrating and bewitching those who adore him.
A Complete Unknown tracks Dylan’s rise from a fresh-faced ragamuffin to controversial superstar during the years of 1961 to 1965. Anointed by his folk music hero Woody Guthrie and shepherded by folk singer Pete Seeger (played by the excellent Edward Norton), Dylan becomes folk music’s darling, capturing the hearts of young fans and musical giants (Johnny Cash and Joan Baez) alike. But he cannot resist the urge to break free of boundaries imposed upon him: much to the chagrin of the folk musicians and women that he charmed, Dylan eventually leaves them behind. Punctuating the narrative are Dylan’s various era-defining songs, but they never feel like the forced musical interludes of some jukebox biopics.
Some will decry the historical inaccuracies of the film (never mind that the real Dylan annotated and approved the script). But do those inaccuracies matter? Dylan himself—or should I say, Robert Zimmerman—reinvented his past. It seems fair that a film chronicling the mythologizing of its subject can do so too. A Complete Unknown reminds us that Dylan will always be an enigmatic figure, frustrating and bewitching those who adore him.
Elizabeth Eck, senior editor
Boys will be boys: Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals by Ronnie Grinberg, released earlier this year, is a humorous and incisive look into the culture and rhetorical style that developed in the city after World War II. Grinberg argues that inside institutions like the City College of New York, a new archetype of academics developed—one that responded to antisemitic caricatures of effete Jewish men and encouraged the next generation of Jewish intellectuals to develop a bombastic and combative attitude.
This culture birthed a handful of influential figures of different political stripes, from leftist sociologist Irving Howe, to neoconservative Norman Podhoretz, to the ideological wild card Lionel Trilling (the first Jewish professor to reach tenure at Columbia University). Non-Jews and women could participate in this subculture, but Grinberg argues the latter had to adopt a “manly” writing style while maintaining a requisite level of feminine beauty (Hannah Arendt purportedly fit the bill). For fans of any of the writers and intellectuals mentioned above, Write Like a Man illuminates their attitudes on gender and interpersonal conflict. For those less familiar with its characters, the book still offers a wry and faithfully rendered account of a distinct intellectual culture, one with enough macho folklore and eccentricities to be interesting in its own right.
This culture birthed a handful of influential figures of different political stripes, from leftist sociologist Irving Howe, to neoconservative Norman Podhoretz, to the ideological wild card Lionel Trilling (the first Jewish professor to reach tenure at Columbia University). Non-Jews and women could participate in this subculture, but Grinberg argues the latter had to adopt a “manly” writing style while maintaining a requisite level of feminine beauty (Hannah Arendt purportedly fit the bill). For fans of any of the writers and intellectuals mentioned above, Write Like a Man illuminates their attitudes on gender and interpersonal conflict. For those less familiar with its characters, the book still offers a wry and faithfully rendered account of a distinct intellectual culture, one with enough macho folklore and eccentricities to be interesting in its own right.
William Moursund, contributing editor