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An Editor's Burial: Journals and Journalism from the New Yorker and Other Magazines by David Brendel
richieowens's review
funny
informative
medium-paced
3.75
I got this book a month or so before I saw The French Dispatch, and I finished it a month or so after seeing The French Dispatch. In that time, I fell in love with The New Yorker.
One reason I stopped reading this book at some point in 2021 was because I had started subscribing to The New Yorker and thought “I’d rather read from my contemporaries (hah) than from my elders (haha).” I’m glad I did, to be honest. I’m loving every minute of it, and getting the magazine in the mail is often the highlight of my week (hahah).
The stories in here cover everything from rats in New York City to the May 68 student protests in Paris. And a lot in between, but those were my two favorite stories by far. I can’t stop bringing up the rats in conversation. It really changed me.
Wes Anderson definitely has a taste for “the elegant” things in life, and some of these choices really show that. AJ Liebling going off about food bored me. There’s a piece of an art collector that I found interesting and then ultimately it just kept going. This book definitely shows more of “high society” than I enjoy, which is partially why it took me so long to read it. Fortunately, The French Dispatch shows the side of high society that I find most interesting: the side that shows rich people are dumb as shit.
James Baldwin’s essay about being arrested in Paris was also a highlight for me. It was incredibly endearing to have him get arrested and to know that his primary concern was when he was going to get out so he could eat dinner.
I want to move to France and I want to stay in America and I want to start a magazine and I want to read my friends’s writings for the rest of my life.
One reason I stopped reading this book at some point in 2021 was because I had started subscribing to The New Yorker and thought “I’d rather read from my contemporaries (hah) than from my elders (haha).” I’m glad I did, to be honest. I’m loving every minute of it, and getting the magazine in the mail is often the highlight of my week (hahah).
The stories in here cover everything from rats in New York City to the May 68 student protests in Paris. And a lot in between, but those were my two favorite stories by far. I can’t stop bringing up the rats in conversation. It really changed me.
Wes Anderson definitely has a taste for “the elegant” things in life, and some of these choices really show that. AJ Liebling going off about food bored me. There’s a piece of an art collector that I found interesting and then ultimately it just kept going. This book definitely shows more of “high society” than I enjoy, which is partially why it took me so long to read it. Fortunately, The French Dispatch shows the side of high society that I find most interesting: the side that shows rich people are dumb as shit.
James Baldwin’s essay about being arrested in Paris was also a highlight for me. It was incredibly endearing to have him get arrested and to know that his primary concern was when he was going to get out so he could eat dinner.
I want to move to France and I want to stay in America and I want to start a magazine and I want to read my friends’s writings for the rest of my life.
atticmoth's review
informative
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
It takes a lot to get me to read the New Yorker; I find it self-absorbed and masturbatory. Wes Anderson’s movie The French Dispatch convinced me to pick this up the same day I saw it in theaters! I wanted a good selection of essays to inspire me to write my grad school application, which worked I guess. I see where the movie’s inspiration came from but I couldn’t help myself from comparing them at every turn. I read Harold Ross’s lines in Bill Murray’s voice in my head. Tilda Swinton as Rosamond Bernier, the “fiery redhead” modern art lecturer. The upward haggling of a painting. Some of this selection made it into his other movies, too—I saw a bit of Gustav H from The Grand Budapest Hotel in the profile of art curator Joseph Duveen.
Being the New Yorker, the writing is of course top tier, but it’s just not very interesting to me. For example, Vic Mehta’s started good, about not wanting his blindness to define his writing. But it eventually devolved into yet another obituary for an editor I know nothing about. In fact, most of this book is just obituaries for people I’d never heard of, mostly New Yorker staff members. The fact that so much of An Editor’s Burial is devoted to writing about the New Yorker confirms that it’s an insular world.
The highlight of this book is “The Events in May: A Paris Notebook Part 1” by Mavis Gallant, an almost-60 page long journal about the student revolts of 1968. It’s written in a stream of consciousness style notes to self, seemingy unedited, rambling, with sentence fragments and initials left in. Gallant gives the student revolutionaries an almost Didion-like dignity, similar to Joan Didion’s profile of the same event at the same time in a different place in The White Album. She takes ‘journalistic neutrality’ to a new extent (which the movie, which has a segment based on this piece, jokes about), conferring admiration for the students while still highlighting the futility or hypocrisy of their movement. This quote sums it up: “When workers are asked, in interviews, what they think of the students, they invariably refer to them as ‘our future bosses,’ and say they hope this experience will make better chefs of them than their fathers have been. French Revolution all for nothing?”
Other highlights include James Baldwin as always and AJ Liebling’s two food essays. The most interesting part was honestly Wes Anderson’s interview in the introduction, because it’s clear that the only uniting theme of these pieces is that they inspired the movie. If you haven’t seen it, there’s no thematic throughline, and it won’t make sense as a curated collection. They don’t even all have to do with France!
Being the New Yorker, the writing is of course top tier, but it’s just not very interesting to me. For example, Vic Mehta’s started good, about not wanting his blindness to define his writing. But it eventually devolved into yet another obituary for an editor I know nothing about. In fact, most of this book is just obituaries for people I’d never heard of, mostly New Yorker staff members. The fact that so much of An Editor’s Burial is devoted to writing about the New Yorker confirms that it’s an insular world.
The highlight of this book is “The Events in May: A Paris Notebook Part 1” by Mavis Gallant, an almost-60 page long journal about the student revolts of 1968. It’s written in a stream of consciousness style notes to self, seemingy unedited, rambling, with sentence fragments and initials left in. Gallant gives the student revolutionaries an almost Didion-like dignity, similar to Joan Didion’s profile of the same event at the same time in a different place in The White Album. She takes ‘journalistic neutrality’ to a new extent (which the movie, which has a segment based on this piece, jokes about), conferring admiration for the students while still highlighting the futility or hypocrisy of their movement. This quote sums it up: “When workers are asked, in interviews, what they think of the students, they invariably refer to them as ‘our future bosses,’ and say they hope this experience will make better chefs of them than their fathers have been. French Revolution all for nothing?”
Other highlights include James Baldwin as always and AJ Liebling’s two food essays. The most interesting part was honestly Wes Anderson’s interview in the introduction, because it’s clear that the only uniting theme of these pieces is that they inspired the movie. If you haven’t seen it, there’s no thematic throughline, and it won’t make sense as a curated collection. They don’t even all have to do with France!
slbeckmann's review
3.0
Thank you to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Since I love essays, I was looking forward to reading this selection of essays from the New Yorker (and other magazines). I didn't realize that this book is a collection meant to accompany Wes Anderson's upcoming film "The French Dispatch". I might not have requested this had this been clear to me.
As a collection of journalism from expats in Paris during the 20th century, this book is an interesting read. As to be expected, I found some pieces more/less appealing than others, but several give a fascinating portrait of the time. Overall though, the book felt a bit dusty and out of date, both in style and in content. Quite a few of the articles were paeans to Harold Ross, the founder of the New Yorker, which didn't really interest me.
Since I love essays, I was looking forward to reading this selection of essays from the New Yorker (and other magazines). I didn't realize that this book is a collection meant to accompany Wes Anderson's upcoming film "The French Dispatch". I might not have requested this had this been clear to me.
As a collection of journalism from expats in Paris during the 20th century, this book is an interesting read. As to be expected, I found some pieces more/less appealing than others, but several give a fascinating portrait of the time. Overall though, the book felt a bit dusty and out of date, both in style and in content. Quite a few of the articles were paeans to Harold Ross, the founder of the New Yorker, which didn't really interest me.