Books

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest at 30

Julian Murphet, Jury Professor of English and Language and Literature, Adelaide University Thirty years ago, living in Cambridge, England, I wandered into Heffers Bookshop and picked up a monstrous new novel on the display table. It had a title out of Hamlet, a Simpsons-sky dustjacket, hundreds of endnotes, and ran to almost 1,100 pages. Infinite Jest occupied much of that cold February and March, and to this day I remember finishing it with a sensation of frustrated exhaustion. It seemed then (as it does now) a wildly uneven book held together by something new in American fiction of the postmodern age: a white-hot purity of moral purpose that made it seem weirdly old-fashioned, despite all the bells and whistles of its cumbersome near-future satire about a nation amusing itself to death. It was, undoubtedly, a major achievement, though it was also clear that something was not quite right with its writer, David Foster Wallace. Aesthetic misjudgements had led to so many wincing misfires, lapses of taste and tedious longueurs that it all seemed indicative of a deeper subjective disequilibrium. In that sense, the book was “true” in a way the author’s journalism (to which one turned with curiosity) was not. In those snappy features, written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Première and other glossy magazines, the ardent moral vision is worn as a winning professional mask. It speaks in a voice mixed of pedantry, whimsy and stern judgement. Smart, alert, observant, mordantly funny, the Wallace of the non-fiction also came across as a bit of an asshole. And an asshole, it turned out, he was. But more of that later. Literature of exhaustion Twelve years later in 2008, Wallace was dead at age 46. That suicide has subsequently woven something of a halo over the bandanaed-average-Joe-nice-rural-Midwest-boy image cultivated by the author while alive. Posthumous books, […]

Hypocrisy and folly: why Australia’s subservience to Trump’s America is past its use-by date

(Left)Mark Beeson, Adjunct professor, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney. Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era – Clinton Fernandes (Melbourne University Publishing) Clinton Fernandes has established himself as one of the most original and insightful analysts of Australian security policy. An early career with the Australian Army Intelligence Corps no doubt gave him an inside view of the ideas that influence security policy in this country. I’m not surprised he changed careers. To judge by this outstanding book, there is little regard for intelligence, much less independence of thought, among the people who shape “Australia’s” strategic outlook. The scare quotes are merited because, as Fernandes observes, “Australia’s policy planners are motivated by […] a single standard – does something protect or advance US power and Australia’s relevance to it?” One of the most noteworthy features of Fernades’ analysis in Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era and his previous work, especially Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena (2022), is his ability to account for policy outcomes by placing them in their distinctive historical and geographic contexts. For those baffled by the decision to buy nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and possibly Britain as part of the AUKUS agreement, Turbulence is essential reading. A growing number of commentators, including former prime ministers and senior military figures, have questioned the wisdom of what Paul Keating called the “worst deal in all history”. Fernandes explains why AUKUS is an all-too-predictable continuation of past follies. Supporters of AUKUS have suggested that buying and possibly building submarines is a nation-building project on a par with the Snowy Mountains scheme. But Fernandes makes it clear that, “despite ideologically strident claims by Australia’s leaders”, AUKUS is “a contribution of people, territory, materials, money, diplomacy and ideology to the war-fighting capabilities of the United States”. […]

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows

This is a brilliantly insightful work that explains how we think about each other’s thoughts, ad infinitum. It sounds impossible, but Steven Pinker shows that we do it all the time. This awareness, which we experience as something that is public or “out there,” is called common knowledge, and it has a momentous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. Common knowledge is necessary for coordination, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right, using paper currency, and coalescing behind a political leader or movement. It’s also necessary for social coordination: everything from rendezvousing at a time and place to speaking the same language to forming enduring relationships of friendship, romance, or authority. Humans have a sixth sense for common knowledge, and we create it with signals like laughter, tears, blushing, eye contact, and blunt speech. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge—to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. Pinker shows how the hidden logic of common knowledge can make sense of many of life’s enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretense of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. Artists and humorists have long mined the intrigues of common knowledge, and Pinker liberally uses their novels, jokes, cartoons, films, and sitcom dialogues to illuminate social life’s tragedies and comedies. Along the way he answers questions like: Why are Super Bowl ads filled with ads for crypto? Why, in American presidential primary voting, do citizens typically select the candidate they believe is preferred by others […]

Empire of the Elite

By Michael Grynbaum For decades, Condé Nast and its glittering magazines defined how to live the good life in America. The brilliant, complicated, striving characters behind Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, Architectural Digest, and many other titles manufactured a vision of luxury and sophistication that shaped consumer habits, cultural trends, intellectual attitudes, and political beliefs the world over. Condé’s billionaire owner Si Newhouse and his stable of star editors, photographers, and writers were the gatekeepers who decided what and who mattered, and they offered those opinions to tens of millions of readers every month. They were the ultimate influencers—before social media changed everything. The magazines crowned celebrities by the dozens, patronised creative talent much as the Medicis had underwritten Renaissance artists, and supercharged opulent events like the Vanity Fair Oscar Party and the Met Gala, which came to rival any fete that Louis XIV ever hosted at Versailles. The book is full of fresh behind-the-scenes reporting about a plethora of boldface names and sets out to explain how Condé Nast established itself as a de facto American aristocracy, anointing an elite and dictating the culture they presided over. The colorful story of Condé Nast at its zenith and the profound way it influenced how Americans aspired to look, eat, decorate, date, marry, and even think, has never been examined deeply. Empire of the Elite is the first book-length history of an empire whose publications refashioned American notions of prestige, whose editors became celebrities themselves, and whose diminution offers a cautionary tale of class, hubris, and technological change, even as its aesthetic and ethos remain influential to this day.

The Opposite of Settling

Forget settling or “settling down” – you deserve a love that upgrades every aspect of your life. A love that empowers you to get hotter, happier, and more fulfilled… together. The host of the podcast New Mindset, Who Dis? helps you find a partnership that fills your life with “can you believe we did that?” moments, where “let’s book a flight and go” is as common as “I love you.” Are you looking for a love that offers you clarity, not confusion? Does it feel like love has gotten too complicated? Does the sea of dating rules and expectations make you feel overwhelmed? Case Kenny, host of the New Mindset, Who Dis? podcast and author of That’s Bold of You, brings you The Opposite of Settling—a blend of practical mindfulness, evidence-based research, and undiluted optimism—to help you find a love that expands your world. Case guides you toward finding and building a relationship that empowers you to be independent, vibrant, and in love. The book offers you the tools to: · Navigate the complexities of modern dating with confidence and an unbothered mindset · Find a connection that feels like home yet pushes you toward a fuller and more vibrant life · Recognize and attract relationships that elevate your life instead of weighing or “settling” you down · Let go of fear-based dating habits and find a love that enhances your sense of independence The Opposite of Settling isn’t just about finding someone; it’s about finding more of yourself in the process. Case’s concept of “settling up” (the opposite of “settling down”) offers an energizing affirmation of love, leaving you feeling lighter, unburdened of rules and expectations, and on the path to finding a relationship where you both look at each other and think, “Yup, that’s my kind of weird.”

Weekend coming up…

Close the computer and enjoy a good book. Moby Dick Herman Melville The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony – Roberto Calasso The Universal Turing Machine – Richard Beard A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell Our Man in Havana- Graham Green The Great Game – Peter Hopkirk Middlemarch – George Elliot Tender is the Night – F Scott Fitzgerald

Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI

From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman’s OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy, When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realiaed that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations? Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate […]

Graydon Carter hired Christopher Hitchens, pissed off Trump and revealed Deep Throat

Julian Novitz Senior Lecturer, Writing, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology. The editor of Vanity Fair, Radhika Jones, is stepping down after seven years. Amid the media buzz about who might take her role – long considered a plum one – is a surprising question. “Is it still a good job?” asked the New York Times last week. Some magazine editors have said no, one even saying “I wouldn’t touch that job”. But Jones’ immediate predecessor, Graydon Carter, says it’s “still a great job for an enterprising editor”, though the golden age of magazines – including Vanity Fair – is clearly over. Carter’s new memoir recounts his time as editor from 1992 to 2017, during the magazine’s glory days. It’s full of stories about editors and writers who comfortably stalked the halls of power. They rubbed shoulders with tycoons and celebrities, attracted both reverence and apoplectic rage, and were handsomely paid for it. When the Going Was Good is an apt title for a book about the “golden age of magazines”. Carter’s memoir focuses on his time at Vanity Fair, but also includes stints at Time magazine, where he got his first taste of “expense account life”, and as co-founder of iconic satirical magazine Spy, where he first described rising tycoon Donald Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian”. Graydon Carter’s memoir remembers his time at Vanity Fair, Time magazine and co-founding Spy. Penguin Random House As Carter notes in his memoir, the glory days of the print magazines have passed. What can he tell us about their heyday, and the future of long-form journalism? Golden days For an editor with a few horror stories about writers who exceed their word count – one would apparently turn in 70,000-word “vomit drafts” – Carter doesn’t exactly make a virtue of concision. The opening chapters linger […]

When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as many of the faces that would come to appear in Vanity Fair’s pages. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades. Filled with colorful memories and intimate details, When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter’s lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business. Moving to New York from Canada, he worked at Time, Life, The New York Observer, and Spy, before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who pulled him in to run Vanity Fair. In Newhouse he found an unwavering champion, a loyal proprietor who gave Carter the editorial and financial freedom to thrive. Annie Leibovitz’s photographs would come to define the look of the magazine, as would the “New Establishment” and annual Hollywood issues. Carter further planted a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. […]

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

by Sarah Wynn-Williams Power and corruption – the power system we live in – accountability. Think about the systems you are a part of. Being careless can have huge consequences. Working for Mark Zuckerberg may not be the best option and did Sheryl Sandberg “Lean In’ too far? An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them. From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite. Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.” Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade―told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.

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