One of the most entertaining features of The New York Review of Books is the predictable follow-up to a critical review. Garry Wills' recent ber-critical review of All Things Shining (mentioned on dotCom by John McGreevy) has elicited counter-accusations by the aggrieved authors:

Any good argument against a position, of course, begins by interpreting it as sympathetically as possible. Perhaps Wills is unable to recognize this hermeneutic charity.

And they conclude, plaintively (though with a touch of hauteur):

Garry Wills has been described as the finest intellectual historian of our age. But the particular, well-trodden historical debates he recites are irrelevant to our books philosophical claims, and no substitute for serious thinking about them.

Meanwhile, take-no-prisoners Garry, comes to the fray armed with his ready rejoinder:

They do not even mention the matters that were most noticed as sacred shining moments in their bookthe worship of Roger Federers tennis, the praises of the Lord for Demon Deacons, the canonization of Elizabeth Gilbert for submitting to the god of her own genius. They especially do not take the opportunity to explain, at last, their wildest ideathat carefully brewed coffee is a prophylactic against the whoosh of Hitler rallies. They vaguely dance away from all that with a dismissive claim that I am talking history and they are talking philosophyas if philosophy were a warrant for making false statements, over and over.

Though I've given the essence of their ephemeral joust, those who would relish the whole exchange of whooshes can find it here.One only hopes that all parties will read the piece on Orwell in the same issue of the Review (referenced below by DG) and come to recognize one another as fellow-travelers-with-falling trousers.

Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is a longtime Commonweal contributor.

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