It’s not perfect but it does have some lines that set my mind at ease. Luckily I awoke this morning from unsettling dreams to find in my inbox this review, which some kind soul had sent to me. Jerome’s, with a enervating ratio of sinew to pomp.”)Īnyway, this is what was keeping me up last night. Roiphe’s are how you want your essays to sound: gimlet-eyed and bashful, not unlike Jerome K. Roiphe’s are how you want your essays to sound: lithe and uncircumcised, not unlike prepubescent Phylis Schlafly, with an amusing ratio of worldliness to vertical leap.” “Ms. (Garner’s comment immediately prompted Freddie DeBoer to go on a tear on my FB page: “Ms. Which may, come to think of it, explain his affinity for Roiphe’s sentences. The more likely explanation is that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and simply liked the sound of the sentence, meaning be damned. It’s possible of course that Garner meant this as a sly critique. It’s a strange sort of compliment to say that a writer achieves the stature of Orwell by writing about things of little to no substance, particularly since the shallow end of the pool isn’t where Garner thinks Roiphe is to be found paddling. As someone more literate in physics explained to me, the only situation in which a small amount of torque could produce a great deal of velocity (and thus a frightening ratio) is one in which the mass in question - i.e., the substance of the book - is extremely slight. (I know, it took me a while, too.) The sentence makes no sense. Set aside, if you can, the comparison to Orwell.

Roiphe’s are how you want your essays to sound: lean and literate, not unlike Orwell’s, with a frightening ratio of velocity to torque. More puzzling, though, is Garner’s prose: This is a writer, after all, whose one talent is for making you like things you dislike just because she dislikes them (and vice versa) her voice and sensibility are that grating. Garner’s praise of Roiphe’s prose is puzzling. I spent last night tossing and turning over Dwight Garner’s review of Katie Roiphe’s latest book of essays.

The Night It Ended by Katie Garner