{"id":2559,"date":"2024-03-19T12:34:53","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T19:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2024-03-19T12:48:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T19:48:20","slug":"an-old-fashioned-take-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2024\/03\/19\/an-old-fashioned-take-down\/","title":{"rendered":"An old-fashioned take-down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Becca Rothfeld’s book review “Lauren Oyler thinks she is better than you<\/a>” is a thorough evisceration of Oyler’s book No Judgment<\/em>. You don’t see many reviews like this these days. Critics that attack books typically go after the author’s political or cultural stance – indeed, often use the occasion of their reviews to promote their own contrasting positions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of old of course did the same thing, but they supplemented this approach by also writing reviews of the author’s quality of mind – say, of that author’s poor cerebral and compositional hygiene. Rothfeld’s amusing Washington Post piece is of that latter sort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addendum: The New York Times review tries to be nicer but damns with faint praise<\/a>. Both pieces therefore make me relieved I am not Lauren Oyler this week, though they don’t make me think I am better than her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Becca Rothfeld’s book review “Lauren Oyler thinks she is better than you” is a thorough evisceration of Oyler’s book No Judgment. You don’t see many reviews like this these days. Critics that attack books typically go after the author’s political … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-2559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-journalism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2562,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions\/2562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}