Prufrock: Cambridge Bows to Beijing, Monet’s Gardens, and Meeting Robert Lowell

Reviews and News:

The man who keeps Monet’s gardens growing.

Cambridge University Press removes academic articles at the request of the Chinese government: “One of the world’s oldest and most respected publishing houses, Cambridge University Press, has bowed to pressure from Beijing and removed sensitive content on its site in China. The content is published in China Quarterly, an academic journal run by the press. In a letter made public on social media on Friday, the editor of the journal, Tim Pringle, said Cambridge University Press had informed him that the authorities had ordered it to censor more than 300 articles related to issues like the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the Cultural Revolution. The publishing house’s site risked being shut down if it did not comply with the request, the letter said.”

Members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resign en masse.

The late John Saunders’s quiet battle with depression: “Saunders, along with co-author John U. Bacon, had been working on this memoir for quite some time before he died. His hope was to shine a light from his personal perspective — a man who happened to be a well-known black broadcaster who was engaged in a years-long attempt to conceal his mental suffering.”

In Case You Missed It:

85% of matter is dark matter, and no one knows what it is: “Dark matter is as tangible as stars and planets to most astronomers. We routinely map it out. We conceive of galaxies as lumps of dark matter with dabs of luminous material. We understand the formation of cosmic structure, as well as the evolution of the universe as a whole, in terms of dark matter. Yet a decade of sophisticated searches has failed to detect the material directly. We see the shadow it casts, but are completely unaware of what the dark side of the universe may contain.”

Mark Lilla talks with Rod Dreher about how identity politics went off the rails.

Writers on writing: “My greatest achievement as a writer is undoubtedly the highly refined autocorrect settings on my laptop.”

The king of audiobooks: “Early in his career as a narrator of audiobooks, George Guidall received a note from a truck driver in Montana. The man had been so absorbed in listening to Mr. Guidall’s eloquent recording of Crime and Punishment that he drove off the road. He was writing from his hospital bed to thank Mr. Guidall because he now had time to finish listening to the book. Mr. Guidall is the undisputed king of audiobooks: more than 1,300 so far, with a stack of new prospects beside his bed awaiting his attention.”

Interview: Sam Leith talks to Jonathan Raban about Robert Lowell

Classic Essay: Robert Jastrow and Homer E. Newell, “Why Land on the Moon?”

Get Prufrock in your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.

Related Content