Matthew Walther

RT @vcunningham: it's becoming more and more important to be an unrepentant snob

This by @yeppjane reminds me of a point I make over and over again—reading Shakespeare's sonnets in isolation from the English tradition that preceded him (to say nothing of his contemporaries and successors) is a comparatively impoverished experience, even for formalist critics.

RT @SamAdlerBell: i suppose what people mean is like, the rhythms give them the sense experience of good writing. but that's very strange t…

RT @SamAdlerBell: almost every turn of phrase in here is befuddling, in and out of context. e.g. - “precociously self-aware frontier” - “dr…

RT @SamAdlerBell: I'm sure LLMs will get better than this. But as it stands, everyone who posts this kind of thing — with an example that w…

You're kidding, right? https://t.co/ff8qklVtVy

James Marriott @j_amesmarriott

The first three paragraphs of a Chat-GPT review of the Rachel Papers by Martin Amis. Quite amazing. I think you could submit writing of this standard to a magazine and get published. Took three seconds. https://t.co/BzE3I5iy2t

In a word, no

Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks

Should we include "The Lord of the Rings" on great book lists? https://t.co/DTkkwm2Jo0

How do you make these go away https://t.co/WghqdbZBpW

https://t.co/E2ZtDO7YUP

And coming hard on his heels is Sylvia Thérèse Walther, now four https://t.co/j3QDqAnDDS

Matthew Walther @matthewwalther

Seven years ago today John Henry Newman Walther was born at home in Three Rivers, Michigan. https://t.co/NxujAudJFb

German compound word of the day: "Werkstückauflagefläche"

https://t.co/xvgidvTvik

PoIiMath @politicalmath

If anyone has a course or regime for rebuilding an attention span shattered by social media, I really want to know about it. I've been noticing that it's harder for me to focus for long periods of time on specific topics b/c there is always a squirrel

For those following from home, my last word on the Democracy in America controversy (for today).

Matthew Walther @matthewwalther

@zenahitz @xsantiagoramos If you're just jumping in, a simple brief for my position is Democracy in America is a weird ad hoc work that became a "classic" for almost random reasons. One could just as easily have done the same thing with any number of now comparatively unknown books (Dickens's American

I say no to this one because in my experience there actually are only two kinds of people—real paid-up Joycean freaks and those who feel comfortable saying the Wake is complete bilge. I don't think people really pretend (maybe some do with Ulysses, though).

Harvey Dangerfield @ellipsisTG

@matthewwalther Finnegans Wake

This is why I've never read it. The way it is discussed in certain circles baffles me—it would be like constructing some kind of intellectual system full of deep immutable principes out of London Labour and the London Poor and calling oneself a "Mayhewian."

Nick Heckman @NickHeckman58

@matthewwalther Democracy in America is a grind and most of it is quite boring