A gruesome twosome

The New Yorker announces the release of Critics at Large, their new culture podcast.

The podcast’s first two episodes, released today, draw on texts ranging from “Jane Eyre” to “The Social Network” to explain two very different, equally ubiquitous cultural phenomena. In the first, the hosts examine a trend they dub “cringecore”—an “unstable blend of scripted and reality television” that makes us feel a “trickle of revulsion.” Why are we fascinated by extremely uncomfortable situations on TV? Why do we keep coming back for more Nathan Fielder, “the godfather of cringe,” and the humiliating situations he engineers? In the second episode of Critics at Large, the trio dissects the myth-making of Elon Musk, as embodied by Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the Tesla founder. What does Isaacson say—or fail to say—about the effects of extreme power?

A contributor to WAToday (Australia) tackles his tsundoku and reads Wuthering Heights at last.

My choice? I pluck Wuthering Heights from my tsundoku. It falls into the “should have read by now – can’t believe you haven’t” category. It smells of old paper and dust and its typeface must be in seven-point. It seems like the perfect time to read the thing.

I’m in for a shock. I know that Heathcliff’s tall, dark and handsome, but he also kills puppies. I honestly tried to like him until he did that. He and Catherine are a gruesome twosome and the entire story is dedicated to their rottenness. How did this become a classic, I wonder (of course, the writing’s superb).

Wuthering Heights has laid me low. (Jo Stubbings)

Daily Mail features a teacher of Yorkshire dialect with a waiting list.

Certainly, everyone I know from England's biggest county has an extraordinarily strong sense of identity. And it's not just about Yorkshire pudding, cricket, the Brontës and Wensleydale cheese. (Jane Fryer)

El Colegio Nacional (Mexico) reports on a recent panel on literature and architecture.

Para referirse a la relación entre literatura y arquitectura, García-Junco habló de Jane Eyre de Chartlotte [sic] Brontë y Jardín de Dulce María Loynaz. “Ambas obras me parecen interesantes porque desde la idea de una casa reflejan muy diferentes realidades”.

Frente a dos descripciones de casas diferentes, la de Brontë y la de Loynaz, consideró la panelista, “a mí se me hace muy interesante ver esta relación entre quién escribe y lo que escribe y cómo se refleja en algo tan físico como el espacio donde habitan los personajes; creo que eso es algo bien interesante, que la literatura debe tener, porque, aunque no quiera, es política simplemente por el hecho de elegir qué representa o qué no representa y desde qué ángulo lo representa”. (Translation)