Weekly Readings #205 (01/05/26-01/11/26)
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Buddenbrooks
14 min read
The article extensively discusses Thomas Mann's first major novel and includes an image from the Buddenbrooks cover. Understanding this work about a merchant family's decline across generations provides essential context for the discussion of sentimentality, irony, and love in fiction.
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New sincerity
13 min read
The article directly references the 'new sincerity' as a 21st-century literary movement that rejects sustained irony in favor of flagrant sentimentalism. This cultural and literary movement provides crucial context for understanding the essay's argument about fiction and emotional truth.
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Madame Bovary
12 min read
Cited as 'the model' for the ironic yet secretly loving approach to fiction, Flaubert's landmark novel is central to the article's thesis about how great literature uses irony to ultimately affirm love. Understanding its revolutionary techniques illuminates the entire argument.
A weekly newsletter on what I’ve written, read, and otherwise enjoyed.
“I am fire and air,” says Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, and so the astrologers promise us of 2026.1 Welcome to this firestorm year’s second week here at Grand Hotel Abyss. A few days ago, my recent novel, Major Arcana, received a review from Substack’s own Alexander Sorondo, a comparison between my book and Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs2 as they approach themes of learning and wisdom, innocence and experience.3 This prose poem, though, is my favorite part of the review:
Here are words from Major Arcana that I had to look up.
Au gratin. Rentier. Tulle. Tarsus. Gelid. Tarn. Impasto. Peignoir. Indite. Puce. Pathic. Haruspex. Cartomancy. Prolix. Lemniscate. Cupidon. Contrapposto. Invigilated. Peregrinating. Coeur. Perseveration. Emesis. Gnosis. Studium. Transmasc enby. Trochee. Sarong. Gesamtkunstwerk. Tessellating. Scyphozoan. Diaphanous. Syncretic. Gematria. Reprofuturist (“no definition found”). Enscorcelled. Binaurally. Juridically. Fungating.
I knew the other ones.4
You can order Major Arcana in all formats (print, ebook, audio) here; you can also find it in print wherever books are sold online. You can buy it directly from Anne Trubek’s distinguished Belt Publishing, too—we receive more of a profit that way—or you might also suggest that your local library or independent bookstore acquire a copy. Please also leave a Goodreads, Amazon, or other rating and review. Thanks to all my readers! Speaking of homespun fiction, my Metropolitan Review novelette, The Persephone Complex: A Letter, continues to make its way in the world, as witness this impossibly flattering comparison from Denise S. Robbins:5
Finally, there’s The Invisible College, my literature podcast for paid subscribers to this Substack. The third year begins on January 16 with the first of four episodes on The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. While you wait for that, if Mann himself isn’t keeping you busy enough,6 you can peruse the 2026 schedule or consult the ever-expanding archive, with almost 100 two- to three-hour episodes on subjects from Homer to Joyce, and from ancient to contemporary literature. Thanks to all my current and future paid subscribers!
For today, a repost on literature, love, and emotion from my super-secret Tumblr in case you missed it—its original locus being, of course, super-secret. In the footnotes, among other things, some thoughts on Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. Please enjoy!
Higher Love: On Fiction and/as Feeling
This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.