{"id":96550,"date":"2025-07-27T11:12:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T11:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96550\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T11:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T11:12:15","slug":"a-gritty-and-genuinely-readable-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96550\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gritty and Genuinely Readable Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Welcome back to The Daily\u2019s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what\u2019s keeping them entertained. Today\u2019s special guest is Luis Parrales, an assistant editor who has written about what the border-hawk Catholics get wrong<\/a> and why the papacy is no ordinary succession<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Luis is a new fan of the author Mario Vargas Llosa and a longtime listener of the singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler. His other recommendations include \u201cFemininomenon,\u201d by Chappell Roan; The Bear; and anything by Conan O\u2019Brien\u2014whom he deems \u201cthe king of American comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Culture Survey: Luis Parrales<\/b><\/p>\n

Best novel I\u2019ve recently read, and the best work of nonfiction:<\/b> I was embarrassingly unfamiliar with the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa before his death, in April<\/a>, besides some high-level lore\u2014his role in the Latin American Boom<\/a>, his failed presidential bid<\/a>, the time he socked Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez<\/a> in the face. Soon after, I decided enough was enough and picked up his historical novel The Feast of the Goat<\/a>, published in 2000. Through the brutal regime of Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic until his assassination at the hands of revolutionaries, in 1961, Vargas Llosa explores how the wounds inflicted by a dictatorship remain long after it officially ends. But as gritty and dark as the novel gets\u2014and it gets dark\u2014The Feast of the Goat is one of the most readable books I\u2019ve ever encountered. That\u2019s both because Vargas Llosa\u2019s crisp prose makes the 400 or so pages fly by and, more important, because his novel never loses sight of the power of human resilience.<\/p>\n

I was a bit more familiar with the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who also passed away earlier this year. Although best known for his 1981 book, After Virtue<\/a> (if you haven\u2019t already, read David Brooks\u2019s reflections<\/a> on how its arguments help explain President Donald Trump\u2019s appeal), MacIntyre also wrote Dependent Rational Animals<\/a>. The book offers one of the most persuasive cases I\u2019ve read against treating individual autonomy as the highest ideal, as well as a plea to view our limitations\u2014aging, illness\u2014and dependence on one another not as failings but as constitutive elements of human nature. Oh, and MacIntyre dedicates long stretches of his book to the intelligence of dolphins. Which is great.<\/p>\n

A quiet song that I love, and a loud song that I love:<\/b> Quiet: \u201cIf I Don\u2019t Hear From You Tonight,\u201d by Courtney Barnett. Loud: \u201cFemininomenon,\u201d by Chappell Roan.<\/p>\n

Something I recently rewatched: <\/b>Before earning box-office cachet with the Dune series, Denis Villeneuve directed Incendies, a modern Sophoclean tragedy set during a civil war in the Middle East. Nearly 15 years after its release, the film remains one of the most sobering portrayals of familial ties on-screen\u2014of how they can at once inflict unspeakable pain and inspire courage and selflessness.<\/p>\n

The television show I\u2019m most enjoying right now:<\/b> The latest season of FX\u2019s exquisite The Bear.<\/p>\n

The last thing that made me snort with laughter: <\/b>For my money, Conan O\u2019Brien is the king of American comedy, though part of his greatness is that he\u2019s always reveled in playing the fool. He doesn\u2019t have the commanding swagger of a Dave Chappelle or Bill Burr, opting instead for a style that my colleague David Sims has described<\/a> as a \u201cmix of silly surrealism with an old-timey flair.\u201d I\u2019ve been keeping up with O\u2019Brien since his Late Night days, when I would get home from school and play the previous night\u2019s episode, so watching him get the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor earlier this year felt plenty nostalgic. The full ceremony is on Netflix now, and it\u2019s a comedic cornucopia for any Team Coco stans.<\/p>\n

The last thing that made me cry:<\/b> A few weeks before Independence Day, while visiting New York City, I ended up going to mass at Ascension Church, which has a jazz liturgy on Sunday evenings. Most of my favorite church music leans traditional, yet to my surprise, I felt incredibly moved by the unconventional reverence of melodies with echoes of Art Blakey and Miles Davis. One highlight: the jazz mass\u2019s version of the hymn \u201cThis Is My Song.\u201d These lines in particular felt providentially relevant for anybody searching for a more warmhearted patriotism:<\/p>\n

\n

This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The last museum or gallery show that I loved: <\/b>Museo Nacional de Historia, in Mexico City.<\/p>\n

A musical artist who means a lot to me: <\/b>The Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler isn\u2019t super well known in America\u2014though he did write the first Spanish-language song to win an Oscar<\/a> for Best Original Song\u2014but he\u2019s pretty acclaimed in Latin America and Spain, especially for his lyricism. He can use scientific principles (the law of conservation<\/a> or the evolution of cells<\/a>, for example) as metaphors for love, or meditate on weighty political questions (migration<\/a>, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict<\/a>) without coming off as preachy. No musician means more to me than Drexler, whose art teems with the wonder of a wide-eyed humanist.<\/p>\n

A poem, or line of poetry, that I return to: <\/b>\u201cTwo in the Campagna<\/a>,\u201d by Robert Browning:<\/p>\n

\n

Only I discern\u2014
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Week Ahead<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Naked Gun<\/a>, an action-comedy film starring Liam Neeson as a hapless yet determined detective (in theaters Friday)<\/li>\n
  2. Season 2 of Twisted Metal<\/a>, a postapocalyptic action-comedy series with murderous clowns and a deadly demolition tournament (premiering Thursday on Peacock)<\/li>\n
  3. Black Genius<\/a>, an essay collection by Tre Johnson that identifies overlooked examples of genius in the Black community (out Tuesday)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Essay<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"paintingEero Jarnefelt \/ Heritage Images \/ Getty<\/p>\n

    The Mistake Parents Make With Chores<\/p>\n

    By Christine Carrig<\/p>\n

    \n

    Each September at the Montessori school I run, the preschoolers engage in an elaborate after-lunch cleanup routine. They bustle through the room with sweepers and tiny dustpans, spreading crumbs all over the floor and making a bigger mess than they started with \u2026<\/p>\n

    Contrast this with my own house\u2014where, in a half-hearted effort to encourage my children to take responsibility for our home, I\u2019ve been known to say, \u201cYou live here!\u201d as they ignore the pile of dishes in the sink. After years in Montessori classrooms, I assumed that a culture of taking responsibility would develop spontaneously in my family. And it might have, had I not made some early mistakes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Read the full article.<\/a><\/p>\n

    More in Culture<\/b><\/p>\n

    Catch Up on The Atlantic <\/strong><\/p>\n

    Photo Album<\/b><\/p>\n

    \"JadeJade Rick Verdillo and Jamaica Aguilar kiss during their wedding in the flooded Barasoain Church, in the Philippines. (Aaron Favila \/ AP)<\/p>\n

    Despite flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains in the Philippines, Jade Rick Verdillo and Jamaica Aguilar decided to stick to their planned wedding date<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Play our daily crossword.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Explore all of our newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n

    When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-96550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114924902376864889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}