My advance copy of Ray MacKenzie’s (⁦Ray MacKenzie⁩) sparkling new translation of Flaubert’s SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION sits temptingly at the edge of my desk . . .

Look at this beauty. Grateful to have a double review essay on Ray MacKenzie's new translation of Sentimental Education & NYRB Classics's Letters of Flaubert forthcoming in The Hedgehog Review . . .

“Paris in its entirety existed only in relation to her, and the great city with all its voices, its rustling, was like an immense orchestra around her.” Starting Ray Mackenzie’s luminous new translation of Flaubert’s great portrait of youthful infatuation SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION

Many thanks to The Hedgehog Review for making room for my double review of The Letters of Gustave Flaubert and Ray MacKenzie 's new translation of Sentimental Education in the print "Missing Character" issue. Here's a peak.

My double review of The Letters of Gustave Flaubert and Ray MacKenzie 's new translation of Sentimental Education, originally published in the print edition of the The Hedgehog Review 's "Missing Character" issue, is now available online in full: hedgehogreview.com/issues/missing…

'The subtlety and rigour that Flaubert paid to composition makes translating him a daunting task.' Aaron Peck: Sentimental Education was a misunderstood classic the-tls.co.uk/literature-by-…

“Why use the Oxford comma?”

Les Abbés rodent…

Flaubert's SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION "has an incredible ending. It’s bleak, but also incredibly funny, and I’ll never forget it." —Rachel Kushner, in ELLE Magazine (US) elle.com/culture/books/…

‘Flaubert, like Kafka, thinks or knows that the human world is ridiculous or monstrous. Sometimes he is angry about this, but more often the writing suggests a complicated sympathy.’ Michael Wood on Flaubert’s ‘Sentimental Education’: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Balzac’s environment par excellence is Paris. He documents the hotels, tenements and streets that later regimes would sweep away, and his work serves as a kind of history of the city.’ Raymond N. MacKenzie, in the new issue: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘The working classes are underrepresented in his books, and Balzac was not particularly interested in them. Perhaps he didn’t think they were corrupt enough.’ Raymond N. MacKenzie on Balzac’s Paris: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

Immensely grateful that my essay Proust's Sacramental Sacrifice is now published in LOGOS. An extended version of the essay will appear in More than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature (due out in early 2026 through Word on Fire). Here's an

The practice of reading is in steep decline, and those of us who still do it could soon be a tiny minority. But this simply marks a return to the historical norm – and not necessarily a terrible thing for literature itself. My essay for First Things: firstthings.com/the-future-of-…

America: where a dream can become a reality

Texan guy recites his electric bill like he’s a character in a William Faulkner novel. It’s amazing!

Just as I’d expected, Stendhal is a master. Thank you Ray MacKenzie for translating Le rouge et le noire. You’re now one of my top favorite translators.

Yeah I'm into BDSM (Balzac, Dumas, Stendhal, Maupassant)

“And of the many experiences, the happiest is reading. Ah, there is something far better than reading, and that is rereading…” — Borges at eighty

Just starting in on this. Richard Holmes is always good.