"The breadth of Hitchens’s references makes you feel that, intellectually, you are having your tires rotated."
— Garner, Dwight (b. 1965)
Author
Date
January 1, 2024
Metaphor
"The breadth of Hitchens’s references makes you feel that, intellectually, you are having your tires rotated."
Metaphor in Context
The breadth of Hitchens’s references makes you feel that, intellectually, you are having your tires rotated. And he seemed to know everyone, or at least the right sort of people. If he needed to check an anecdote from a book, in pre-internet days, he would call the person involved, usually an old friend. Should critics get on the phone, and get out, more often? In her review of Sidney Lumet’s film “Serpico” in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael mentioned that she had recently taken the real Frank Serpico out for a cup of coffee.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Dwight Garner, "Want to Feel, Intellectually, Like Someone Is Rotating Your Tires?" [book review of A Hitch in Time], in The New York Times (January 1, 2024). <Link to nyt.com>
Date of Entry
01/03/2024
