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Authority: Essays
A bold, provocative collection of essays on one of the most urgent questions of our What is authority when everyone has an opinion on everything?
Since her canonical 2017 essay “On Liking Women,� the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Andrea Long Chu has established herself as a public intellectual straight out of the 1960s. With devastating wit and polemical clarity, she defies the imperative to leave politics out of art, instead modeling how the left might brave the culture wars without throwing in with the cynics and doomsayers. Authority brings together Chu’s critical work across a wide range of media—novels, television, theater, video games—as well as an acclaimed tetralogy of literary essays first published in n+1. As a critic, Chu places The Phantom of the Opera within a centuries-old conflict between music and drama; questions the enduring habit of reading Octavia Butler’s science fiction as a parable of slavery; teases out the ideology behind Hillary Clinton’s (fictional) sex life; and charges fellow critics like Maggie Nelson and Zadie Smith with a complacent humanism.
Criticism is in a crisis of authority—or rather, that’s what critics have been saying ever since the Enlightenment. In a magisterial new essay, Chu offers a revised intellectual history of this supposed crisis, tracing the surprisingly political contours of criticism from its origins in eighteenth-century aesthetics all the way to its present form in the age of social media. Rather than succumbing to an endless cycle of trumped-up emergencies, Authority makes a compelling case for how to do criticism in light of the genuine crises, from authoritarianism to genocide, that confront us today.
Since her canonical 2017 essay “On Liking Women,� the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Andrea Long Chu has established herself as a public intellectual straight out of the 1960s. With devastating wit and polemical clarity, she defies the imperative to leave politics out of art, instead modeling how the left might brave the culture wars without throwing in with the cynics and doomsayers. Authority brings together Chu’s critical work across a wide range of media—novels, television, theater, video games—as well as an acclaimed tetralogy of literary essays first published in n+1. As a critic, Chu places The Phantom of the Opera within a centuries-old conflict between music and drama; questions the enduring habit of reading Octavia Butler’s science fiction as a parable of slavery; teases out the ideology behind Hillary Clinton’s (fictional) sex life; and charges fellow critics like Maggie Nelson and Zadie Smith with a complacent humanism.
Criticism is in a crisis of authority—or rather, that’s what critics have been saying ever since the Enlightenment. In a magisterial new essay, Chu offers a revised intellectual history of this supposed crisis, tracing the surprisingly political contours of criticism from its origins in eighteenth-century aesthetics all the way to its present form in the age of social media. Rather than succumbing to an endless cycle of trumped-up emergencies, Authority makes a compelling case for how to do criticism in light of the genuine crises, from authoritarianism to genocide, that confront us today.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2025
61 people are currently reading
2,098 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Long Chu
11books163followersAndrea Long Chu is a writer, critic, academic living in Brooklyn. Her first book, published by Verso, is Females. As an essayist, her work has appeared in n+1, Boston Review, The New York Times, New York, New York Review of Books, Artforum, Bookforum, Jewish Currents, Chronicle of Higher Education, Affidavit, 4Columns, differences, Women and Performance, TSQ, and Journal of Speculative Philosophy. She is currently a doctoral student at New York University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
April 23, 2025
call me biased, but i love a mean book review
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
Want to read
July 9, 2024the good lord shows everyone their life mission in their own time. for some people, it's self-improvement. for others, it's activism. and for me, it's getting my hands on a copy of this fucking book so help me god
August 5, 2024
ARC for review. To be published April 8, 2025.
A collection of previously published essays plus two new ones from this Pulitzer Prize winning essayist. Chu offers her opinions and analysis of the TV show “Yellowjackets,� (which I love) “Phantom of the Opera,� “The Last of Us,� (which, apparently, I am the last to know began life as a video game) the writer Ottessa Moshfegh, Joey Soloway, creator of “Transparent,� mixed Asian novels and more.
On author Hana Yanagihara, “If A LITTLE LIFE was opera it was not “La Boheme, it was “Rent.� I disagree…but funny!
On the #MeToo movement, “The thing is, it’s all of them. It’s every single last one of them. Not just the famous ones. Never let anyone persuade you otherwise�.�
This…interesting statement that is worthy of loads of discussion, “It is undoubtedly true that race in America is created and maintained through racist violence.�
The collection is bookended by the two new essays, both of which deal with criticism itself, so there’s a fair amount of navel-gazing here. The first, “”Criticism is a Crisis� (I think. I can barely read my own bad handwriting) is long and, honestly, a bit yawn-inducing. It’s a huge, long history lesson nobody asked for. Critics will like it as it parses what they do and why they are superior to mere reviewers. “[W]e expect the good critic to leave his own values at the door but not his nose for valuing.�
I don’t know, after reading it, critics sound exhausting to me. Certainly they have their place, but if this essay is what being a critic is, then, well, I’m going to want to have that proverbial beer with a plain old reviewer why we talk about which “Seinfeld� episodes are the best. We have favorite Shakespeare plays, but they aren’t as fun to discuss.
The final essay in the book and the second new work is “Authority.� I’ll sum it up with saying that people look to true critics (versus reviewers) not for opinions but judgment. Agree and disagree on this, and I can point to an essay in this very book as an example. I have read and loved two of Hana Yanagihara’s books. I think it’s fair to say that whatever definition one uses of the term “literary fiction� both meet it and both of them could be and likely are (or will be) taught in university classes (I realize that alone doesn't give them merit, but what does?). Anyway, Chu is not impressed. I very much enjoyed reading her views on books I know fairly well even though they differ from mine. I’m not looking for her judgment to take the place of mine or reinforce my own. I still feel exactly the same.
So, to sum up, I thought the first essay would never end, but I quite enjoyed everything else. I don’t know if I’ve read Chu in the past; if I have I didn’t connect the name with what I was reading. I’ll look for her in the future.
A collection of previously published essays plus two new ones from this Pulitzer Prize winning essayist. Chu offers her opinions and analysis of the TV show “Yellowjackets,� (which I love) “Phantom of the Opera,� “The Last of Us,� (which, apparently, I am the last to know began life as a video game) the writer Ottessa Moshfegh, Joey Soloway, creator of “Transparent,� mixed Asian novels and more.
On author Hana Yanagihara, “If A LITTLE LIFE was opera it was not “La Boheme, it was “Rent.� I disagree…but funny!
On the #MeToo movement, “The thing is, it’s all of them. It’s every single last one of them. Not just the famous ones. Never let anyone persuade you otherwise�.�
This…interesting statement that is worthy of loads of discussion, “It is undoubtedly true that race in America is created and maintained through racist violence.�
The collection is bookended by the two new essays, both of which deal with criticism itself, so there’s a fair amount of navel-gazing here. The first, “”Criticism is a Crisis� (I think. I can barely read my own bad handwriting) is long and, honestly, a bit yawn-inducing. It’s a huge, long history lesson nobody asked for. Critics will like it as it parses what they do and why they are superior to mere reviewers. “[W]e expect the good critic to leave his own values at the door but not his nose for valuing.�
I don’t know, after reading it, critics sound exhausting to me. Certainly they have their place, but if this essay is what being a critic is, then, well, I’m going to want to have that proverbial beer with a plain old reviewer why we talk about which “Seinfeld� episodes are the best. We have favorite Shakespeare plays, but they aren’t as fun to discuss.
The final essay in the book and the second new work is “Authority.� I’ll sum it up with saying that people look to true critics (versus reviewers) not for opinions but judgment. Agree and disagree on this, and I can point to an essay in this very book as an example. I have read and loved two of Hana Yanagihara’s books. I think it’s fair to say that whatever definition one uses of the term “literary fiction� both meet it and both of them could be and likely are (or will be) taught in university classes (I realize that alone doesn't give them merit, but what does?). Anyway, Chu is not impressed. I very much enjoyed reading her views on books I know fairly well even though they differ from mine. I’m not looking for her judgment to take the place of mine or reinforce my own. I still feel exactly the same.
So, to sum up, I thought the first essay would never end, but I quite enjoyed everything else. I don’t know if I’ve read Chu in the past; if I have I didn’t connect the name with what I was reading. I’ll look for her in the future.
March 31, 2025
Thank you fsgbooks for the arc
There’s something to be said about how I eat up Chu’s writing while continuing to read and love my problematic authors . Go ahead and take down Hanya, Ottessa, and BEE (lord knows he deserves it), but I’ll still be reading them in peace, thanks. No matter what I’m reading, I’m looking for great writing and Chu is at the top of her game.
In a world where everyone feels the need to explain ad nauseam that all art is subjective and add so many caveats to their thoughts or experience, I look for writing that goes beyond that. It’s an understatement to say Chu doesn’t mind ruffling some feathers, just look through her reviews and count up how many pans there are, but when she does like something I take notice (even if said book has an embarrassingly low rating on GR).
I’m not looking for Chu, or any critic, to tell me what to think (is this me taking away their authority?) - I already know what I love and hate. While I can have my mind changed, it doesn’t come from someone telling me ‘NO this is GOOD� or ‘you're WRONG�. Show me HOW you think, give me something to follow, dig deep, make me not stop thinking about the artwork. Of course I’m being a total hypocrite, when a critic agrees with me I give a little knowing nod, maybe a little HAH is let out.
What I’m trying to get at is that Chu is very analytical and incisive, while also being funny- sometimes dryly, sometimes darkly. That's what makes her essays an event. If you’ve never read her, get this! In a collection of 24 essays, including two new ones about the state and history of criticism itself. I don’t think I skipped any (that’s a lie, I saw the words Phantom of the Opera and moved on), my favorite ones being about gender or depression (China brain shows the aesthetic possibilities of the essay). It doesn’t matter that I’ll never watch Yellowjackets or read Celeste Ng’s latest, I just want to see how Chu’s mind works and how she will cut through the bull.
I wish we lived in a world where more critics had the support to really dive in and research a long form essay, but considering how reviews tank I’ll be waiting a while for the great essay comeback.
There’s something to be said about how I eat up Chu’s writing while continuing to read and love my problematic authors . Go ahead and take down Hanya, Ottessa, and BEE (lord knows he deserves it), but I’ll still be reading them in peace, thanks. No matter what I’m reading, I’m looking for great writing and Chu is at the top of her game.
In a world where everyone feels the need to explain ad nauseam that all art is subjective and add so many caveats to their thoughts or experience, I look for writing that goes beyond that. It’s an understatement to say Chu doesn’t mind ruffling some feathers, just look through her reviews and count up how many pans there are, but when she does like something I take notice (even if said book has an embarrassingly low rating on GR).
I’m not looking for Chu, or any critic, to tell me what to think (is this me taking away their authority?) - I already know what I love and hate. While I can have my mind changed, it doesn’t come from someone telling me ‘NO this is GOOD� or ‘you're WRONG�. Show me HOW you think, give me something to follow, dig deep, make me not stop thinking about the artwork. Of course I’m being a total hypocrite, when a critic agrees with me I give a little knowing nod, maybe a little HAH is let out.
What I’m trying to get at is that Chu is very analytical and incisive, while also being funny- sometimes dryly, sometimes darkly. That's what makes her essays an event. If you’ve never read her, get this! In a collection of 24 essays, including two new ones about the state and history of criticism itself. I don’t think I skipped any (that’s a lie, I saw the words Phantom of the Opera and moved on), my favorite ones being about gender or depression (China brain shows the aesthetic possibilities of the essay). It doesn’t matter that I’ll never watch Yellowjackets or read Celeste Ng’s latest, I just want to see how Chu’s mind works and how she will cut through the bull.
I wish we lived in a world where more critics had the support to really dive in and research a long form essay, but considering how reviews tank I’ll be waiting a while for the great essay comeback.
March 23, 2025
Major thanks to NetGalley and FSG for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
"𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭; 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴, 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘉𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳, 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴."
The kind of book to not only make you seem smarter, but actually try to be smarter to enrich critical thinking. I miss strong opinions. I miss the French. Heated conversations. Not debates. Just talks with passion.
"𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮, 𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵, 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮."
New work. Old work. Revisitations. Refinement. Opinions change, fleshed out more, built upon, and it’s seeing the progression and change that I think informs the work of a great critic. Because we are led to freedom. Freedom from the entrapments of buzz words and blanket words.
"𝘕𝘰𝘵, 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺, '𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵' 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘪𝘵—𝘵𝘩𝘢� 𝘪𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮; 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺."
Chu’s work master’s the ability to take stance and own it. The research is there. The bite too. It’s in the precision that a rhetoric is built, strong-willed and certain o provide a clarity to art.
“𝘛𝘩𝘪� 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺: 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵, 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘳."
Tackling people on like Bret Easton Ellis, Maggie Nelson, Hanya Yanagihara, and even Otessa Moshfegh, I am led to fatigue now with brainless one-liners on a site for reviews. I am bothered by the lack of time spent on leaving others with food for thought.
"𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥; 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳. 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘨𝘰. 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘴𝘦, 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴, 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦, 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺: 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵."
As readers, we should do better. And as people we should do better. And I mean this mostly for America. Look now. Now, at the state of things. A crumbling republic with a great uncertainty that will drown out not only great thinkers, but great thinking. Critical thinking. All thinking.
"𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭; 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴, 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘉𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳, 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴."
The kind of book to not only make you seem smarter, but actually try to be smarter to enrich critical thinking. I miss strong opinions. I miss the French. Heated conversations. Not debates. Just talks with passion.
"𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮, 𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵, 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮."
New work. Old work. Revisitations. Refinement. Opinions change, fleshed out more, built upon, and it’s seeing the progression and change that I think informs the work of a great critic. Because we are led to freedom. Freedom from the entrapments of buzz words and blanket words.
"𝘕𝘰𝘵, 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺, '𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵' 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘪𝘵—𝘵𝘩𝘢� 𝘪𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮; 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺."
Chu’s work master’s the ability to take stance and own it. The research is there. The bite too. It’s in the precision that a rhetoric is built, strong-willed and certain o provide a clarity to art.
“𝘛𝘩𝘪� 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺: 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵, 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘳."
Tackling people on like Bret Easton Ellis, Maggie Nelson, Hanya Yanagihara, and even Otessa Moshfegh, I am led to fatigue now with brainless one-liners on a site for reviews. I am bothered by the lack of time spent on leaving others with food for thought.
"𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥; 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳. 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘨𝘰. 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘴𝘦, 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴, 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦, 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺: 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵."
As readers, we should do better. And as people we should do better. And I mean this mostly for America. Look now. Now, at the state of things. A crumbling republic with a great uncertainty that will drown out not only great thinkers, but great thinking. Critical thinking. All thinking.
Want to read
January 10, 2025i love andrea long chu in a religious worshipping sort of way.
thank you to fsg for the advanced copy!
thank you to fsg for the advanced copy!
April 20, 2025
I consider myself to be of modest intelligence. I'm not a genius, but I'm not uneducated. I try to speak, read and write continuously in a way that hopefully, challenges myself intellectually. I come from a family with poor education values, so my intelligence level, and being "smart enough" has been one of my lifelong insecurities.
I say all of this to segue into my thoughts about Andrea Long Chu's phenomenal essays book, Authority. Chu is a smarty pants. There are no two ways about it. She is sharp-tongued, cleverly witty, and concise with word choices. I thought the following while reading this book - her intelligence is astounding. Astounding! I am envious of her intelligence level. There, I said it! I know a great amount of research went into some of the essays for this book - (Chu even credits her researcher at the end) but to be able to take all of that raw material, weave it together, look at it critically, and then write cohesively on it? Again, astounding.
Chu takes us through her last 7 years or so of various essays she has written on many facets of literature, theatre, television, mental health, and gender issues. She even takes several pokes at the lowly book reviewer. She turns her keen eye on television shows such as The Last of Us, Yellow Jackets, and Yellowstone, and then turns around and criticizes the Phantom of the Opera. We hear her candid thoughts on her gender reassignment surgery, and her forays into TMS therapy prior to her bipolar II diagnosis. Her essay from n+1, "On Liking Women", is republished here in its entirety.
She looks at many authors and their works: Hanya Yanagihara, Bret Easton Ellis, Curtis Sittenfeld, Ottessa Moshfegh, Celeste Ng, Zadie Smith and Octavia Butler. My favorites were the essays on Hanya Yanagihara (she DOES put a lot of gay protagonists in her books) and Ottessa Moshfegh - I've only read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by her thus far, (which I thoroughly enjoyed) but now I am very intrigued and will be seeking out more of her work.
In her titular series of essays, Authority, she dives very deep into the history of literary criticism. In actuality, this was my least favorite of the entire collection. I recognize the importance of it, but it was rather dull and droned on maybe a bit excessively for my tastes.
I was gifted the audiobook version of this book from NetGalley and FSG (MacMillan Audio) - and I really enjoyed this version - it was read by Ms. Chu herself, and I think it added another level to the book that you might not achieve with the print version. You could hear in her voice those essays which she was most passionate about; the tonal inflections, the way she became slightly more animated with certain subjects.
I was unable to save many quotes since this was an audiobook, but I am sure like many other of my all time favorite books, I will eventually purchase a print copy and re-read. Highlighting can happen on the second go-around. The below quote did stand out to me, in both a comical and in an existentialism sort of way :
"All bodily pain begins with shock at the audacity of physical trespass. A kind of astonishment, at the frankly unbelievable insinuation that one is not, in fact, the center of the universe."
This was from her essay on her gender surgery, which was informative on the process itself. What a human being puts themselves through, just to feel something more like who they were meant to be. Much respect to the author.
Read this book. It will make you think. Really hard. And we all need more of that.
I say all of this to segue into my thoughts about Andrea Long Chu's phenomenal essays book, Authority. Chu is a smarty pants. There are no two ways about it. She is sharp-tongued, cleverly witty, and concise with word choices. I thought the following while reading this book - her intelligence is astounding. Astounding! I am envious of her intelligence level. There, I said it! I know a great amount of research went into some of the essays for this book - (Chu even credits her researcher at the end) but to be able to take all of that raw material, weave it together, look at it critically, and then write cohesively on it? Again, astounding.
Chu takes us through her last 7 years or so of various essays she has written on many facets of literature, theatre, television, mental health, and gender issues. She even takes several pokes at the lowly book reviewer. She turns her keen eye on television shows such as The Last of Us, Yellow Jackets, and Yellowstone, and then turns around and criticizes the Phantom of the Opera. We hear her candid thoughts on her gender reassignment surgery, and her forays into TMS therapy prior to her bipolar II diagnosis. Her essay from n+1, "On Liking Women", is republished here in its entirety.
She looks at many authors and their works: Hanya Yanagihara, Bret Easton Ellis, Curtis Sittenfeld, Ottessa Moshfegh, Celeste Ng, Zadie Smith and Octavia Butler. My favorites were the essays on Hanya Yanagihara (she DOES put a lot of gay protagonists in her books) and Ottessa Moshfegh - I've only read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by her thus far, (which I thoroughly enjoyed) but now I am very intrigued and will be seeking out more of her work.
In her titular series of essays, Authority, she dives very deep into the history of literary criticism. In actuality, this was my least favorite of the entire collection. I recognize the importance of it, but it was rather dull and droned on maybe a bit excessively for my tastes.
I was gifted the audiobook version of this book from NetGalley and FSG (MacMillan Audio) - and I really enjoyed this version - it was read by Ms. Chu herself, and I think it added another level to the book that you might not achieve with the print version. You could hear in her voice those essays which she was most passionate about; the tonal inflections, the way she became slightly more animated with certain subjects.
I was unable to save many quotes since this was an audiobook, but I am sure like many other of my all time favorite books, I will eventually purchase a print copy and re-read. Highlighting can happen on the second go-around. The below quote did stand out to me, in both a comical and in an existentialism sort of way :
"All bodily pain begins with shock at the audacity of physical trespass. A kind of astonishment, at the frankly unbelievable insinuation that one is not, in fact, the center of the universe."
This was from her essay on her gender surgery, which was informative on the process itself. What a human being puts themselves through, just to feel something more like who they were meant to be. Much respect to the author.
Read this book. It will make you think. Really hard. And we all need more of that.
April 10, 2025
No one is safe, not even Hanya’s boys, . Chu, an equal opportunist, doles out scrutiny to all of her pieces� subjects.
She styles her unforgiving, sometimes unrelenting, assessments with her philosophical training in the academy, which peeks out with random biblical themes. She will not leave the beloved untouched because even sacred things are worth honestly engaging with again. Sometimes, she opts for a complete reassessment. This can be a freeing experience, not because I believe deconstruction as such should always win the argument, but because she sets a pattern for careful engagement with authority structures. In this sense, Authority is a worthwhile experience pedagogically. This is my more charitable reading of Chu’s methodology and use of critical authority.
A less charitable interpretation is being mean for the likes because human sociality dies in the comment section: the yo� mama jokes fester still. I take her tactic as the former one, even though she doesn’t seek to be charitable (I know correlation isn’t causation, but it’s notable to me that I’m naturally drawn to write this review in the negative after putting down her book). She’s not interested in canceling culturally significant things (maybe except for Yellowstone—fine by me). A negative result of publishing polemical writing as one’s trademark technique is that others may follow suit. I hope critics (even a rando reviewer like me on GR) would have the sense to discern which tone to use and when. Chu’s recent writings in this compilation evolve from the older mince and mangle to something closer to macerate.
I appreciate Chu’s straightforward approach to evaluation, and the writing isn’t too funny, thankfully. There’s just enough salt on the choco chip cookie to intensify the experience; wit in the wrong critic’s hands causes hypertension. Not to belabor the point, but I needed a neutralizing cup of milk after re-reading her essay on Yanagihara. I could write my own essay (which would not be worth your salt) because I disagree with Chu on some points (e.g, “[B]y the fifteenth time, you wish he would aim”—is this sarcasm?). However, I concede the oddity of Hanya’s obsession with men-loving men characters for which Yanagihara does not publicly account.
Except for Part III (save the essay, Votes for Woman), Chu’s opinions stick with me. Her take on video games and TV shows mostly kept my attention, but I relished her work on ethnicity, race, gender, and politics. I would have preferred a focused volume on East Asian American culture and writing, queer experiences, and fiction writing at large, and in this order. I rate Authority 3.5 stars.
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC.
She styles her unforgiving, sometimes unrelenting, assessments with her philosophical training in the academy, which peeks out with random biblical themes. She will not leave the beloved untouched because even sacred things are worth honestly engaging with again. Sometimes, she opts for a complete reassessment. This can be a freeing experience, not because I believe deconstruction as such should always win the argument, but because she sets a pattern for careful engagement with authority structures. In this sense, Authority is a worthwhile experience pedagogically. This is my more charitable reading of Chu’s methodology and use of critical authority.
A less charitable interpretation is being mean for the likes because human sociality dies in the comment section: the yo� mama jokes fester still. I take her tactic as the former one, even though she doesn’t seek to be charitable (I know correlation isn’t causation, but it’s notable to me that I’m naturally drawn to write this review in the negative after putting down her book). She’s not interested in canceling culturally significant things (maybe except for Yellowstone—fine by me). A negative result of publishing polemical writing as one’s trademark technique is that others may follow suit. I hope critics (even a rando reviewer like me on GR) would have the sense to discern which tone to use and when. Chu’s recent writings in this compilation evolve from the older mince and mangle to something closer to macerate.
I appreciate Chu’s straightforward approach to evaluation, and the writing isn’t too funny, thankfully. There’s just enough salt on the choco chip cookie to intensify the experience; wit in the wrong critic’s hands causes hypertension. Not to belabor the point, but I needed a neutralizing cup of milk after re-reading her essay on Yanagihara. I could write my own essay (which would not be worth your salt) because I disagree with Chu on some points (e.g, “[B]y the fifteenth time, you wish he would aim”—is this sarcasm?). However, I concede the oddity of Hanya’s obsession with men-loving men characters for which Yanagihara does not publicly account.
Except for Part III (save the essay, Votes for Woman), Chu’s opinions stick with me. Her take on video games and TV shows mostly kept my attention, but I relished her work on ethnicity, race, gender, and politics. I would have preferred a focused volume on East Asian American culture and writing, queer experiences, and fiction writing at large, and in this order. I rate Authority 3.5 stars.
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC.
March 28, 2025
Five stars for the ottessa essay even though I knew it was gonna be here
April 22, 2025
At some point I wanted to see what Andrea Long Chu looked like and so I clicked on Emily Ratajakowski’s podcast. There, right at the top, is a large male, obese, in a white t shirt that doesn’t remotely cover his protuberant, tubelike paunch, topped by a denim jacket, with jeans and sneakers, some rather antique-looking wire-frame glasses, and a vocal style of enervation and above all deep, exhausted DEPRESSION. As Chu does not make much of a feint at seeming female, save for a very slight effeminacy of speech, one would likely peg him as an autogynephile—the kind of person who gets off on the humiliation of being dressed up girly. Okay, got it: must we call Chu she? In truth, as a critic of human forms, I dont get a whole lot of girl here, but we have learned that misgendering people is a hate crime that leads immediately to suicide! So let’s make a compromise and not use that now hated linguistic category…pronouns!
The main thing I want to take away here is the not-even-trying quality of Chu’s look on the Emrata podcast: not trying to keep that paunch under wraps and not trying to be femme in any form or fashion I can imagine. I say I am Andrea and not Andy and so it must be so. Okay, but wait, why again? Because if you say otherwise I will kill myself. That’s the formula. And many people have accepted it because to do otherwise is to risk reputational oblivion.
Chu has a lot of gruesome writing in here about surgical invagination of the cock. It doesn’t sound like a great look, unlikely to supplant the great-looking vulvae of our living memory. (Chu doesn’t get too deep into this but have you heard about the smell? Well, there’s this connection to the entrails, it seems, and a sewerous smell of shit is at least occasionally a part of the formula�) She has a party where she invites friends to come to the funeral of Andrea Long Chu’s dick and�-
Let’s just freeze it right there. Here is where our politics—Chu refers annoyingly to that phrase “a politics”—have their rubber- meets-the-road moment. I have always recoiled from Andrea Long Chu’s writing, for all its polish, hard, non-AI research, and general air of erudition, because I have felt that Andrea Long Chu would really, really, really hate me.
She would hate me personally and most of the things I cherish: the beauty of young women, the taste of a well-composed icy Martini, the paintings of John Currin, the paroxysms of Norman Mailer, the dining room of the Carlyle, the electronic music of Luigi Nono, Emma Stone’s eyes, the sardonic plotting of John O’Hara. I could go on. But I imagine ALC’s goalie-leaping-in- midair riposte would be “But I’m crazy about Emma Stone’s freckles!�
No matter. We are in a tribal age and so we cling to those who are most like us or, on the outside, those who will not do us harm. We may pretend that our tribal disputes are moral arguments but they actually are not; they’re just “my team doesn’t like your team.� But I have made my peace with this.
There are many authors who might be indifferent to me; many who might have disliked me in real life out of sheer pique or snobbism or a million different neuroses. Those are all fine. No, the people I object to are the ones who specifically object *to me*; and I find it hard not to view Andrea Long Chu as someone who specifically seeks to wipe me out.
Silly, butthurt, ciswhitestraightmale snowflakery, you say? Well, Andrea cites two writers as her heroines: Valerie Solanas, zany playwright, Warhol shooter, and writer of that classic manifesto of the Society for Cutting Up Men; and Jill Johnston, who memorably disrupted Norman Mailer’s TOWN BLOODY HALL debate with a girl-on-girl make out session, and said political revolution can never come until all women are lesbians—one of many Johnston assertions ALC agrees with wholeheartedly, including that “heterosexual feminism is ultimately just a mating ritual.�
What I am saying here, in a rather legalistic, lay-out-the-charts way, is that I probably could never have any fun with Andrea Long Chu because, like all the autogynephiles I know, she can’t hang with normies and has no nostalgia for or feeling of pleasure in the old, pre-Internet world. She hysterically tears Bret Easton Ellis� WHITE to shreds� the one arguably too over the top piece in the book� because unlike him she can’t imagine any affection for cultural aspects of the old, woke-wasn’t-even-a-thing world. Can one imagine Andrea Long Chu watching a Robert Altman movie or listening to a Leonard Cohen album without teeing it up for destruction?
Think I am being a big sissy? And possibly a teeny bit unfair? Well, here are some highlights:
“‘it ain’t feminism if it ain’t intersectional,� tweeted Ariana Grande in 2019, echoing a viral blog post by the writer Flavin Dzoden.�
“Cinephilia is a progressive disease for which there is no cure.� So Ozu and Renoir, not to mention THE LOST BOYS, is just too bro-coded for ALC?
“Solovay introduces deep-sounding quotes from other authors like a middle schooler phoning in a Kate Chopin paper.� This is a major dog whistle to SJW Gen Y’s and Z’s. First the dreadful millennial locution “middle schooler”�.then, uh, what kinda “middle school� kids are reading Kate Chopin? News to me!
About halfway through the book Chu gets preachy, prescriptive, and seems to get off on assuming the vaguely rifle-over-the-shoulder menacing tone of a Maoist cadet. There are a lot of commands to do things God or the people’s or the party’s way and not your own decadent bourgeois individualist way. “But Moshfegh, who has spoken candidly of her struggle with bulimia and recently walked the runway for Mayaar Nassin Zadeh at New York Fashion Week, does not write about fat people.� Not only does the record CLEARLY INDICATE that Moshfegh is fat-exclusive, but Cadet Chu has proof positive that Moshfegh attended this very skinny and quite rich fashion event! Does Chu have in her head a public punishment for Ottessa Moshfegh, like forty lashes? I would reckon so.
[ENTR’ACTE: As I was writing these words I saw a gathering of AOC, Megan Rapinoe, and Nikole Hannah Jones, in which AOC said that this system—the American system of the last 250 years, which to her is coterminous with systemic racism and “late� (?) capitalism—“maybe deserves to decline.� Because, of course, she will create a “more just� system that works for purple-haired Olympic lesbians and purple-haired 1619 obsessives. And her own fine arse, of course. But I digress!]
Artistic freedom, that horribly American, individualistic thing, is anathema to Chu. And Moshfegh, that upper middle class Persian-American striver, is sinner #1. One cannot imagine these two getting along. Imagine the number of times Moshfegh’s eyes would stray to that tube of paunch pooching out of ALC’s failed would-be wifebeater! And so Moshfegh must be smacked down for her hubris: “She may truly be a great American novelist some day, if she learns to be less important.� Has anything ever sounded more like your grandmother telling you to get a better attitude? And more shocking regarding Moshfegh: “It must be convenient to believe in a God whose features consist of giving you divine permission to write whatever you want.� Pfft! Yeah! Who ‘d ever want something like THAT?
What Chu really gets down on fiction writers about is being insufficiently political. What this means practically is 1) they are not touching on the right present-day hot-button topics and 2) they are not signaling clearly to the reader that they are on the right side, the side of the Lord� ALC’s Lord. On a recent Bret Easton Ellis podcast, the literary biographer notes that he was warned to make it clear when he described a teacher’s life practice of offering up his cutest female students to Philip Roth as an after-lecture snack, that he, Bailey, must clearly signal to the readership that he personally abhors this practice. Bailey said he felt it absurd to have to add a sentence of scolding to his narrative. For Chu it’s all about being on the side of the angels. Derrida once said that a misogynistic text can be “more deconstructive”—of “patriarchy,� what have you—than a feminist text. Can one imagine ALC even sitting through, say, RAGING BULL or VERTIGO in this way? As Steve Sailer has his “noticing,� so do the Andrea Long Chus of the world have their remarking. They must make the right comment on some passing image of injustice. Has ALC trucked rice into Gaza or fed the homeless or picked up a rifle to join an army or even gone to a massive protest rally? Not that I’m aware. But she is very adamant that Zadie Smith must fix her brain from “psychological analyses� of her characters to political ones.
This is all a very Marvel/Star Wars kind of Asperger’s twitch: both novelists and their characters must be classified as black hats or white hats.
Andrea Long Chu dresses up an almost terrorist loathing of the normie as—to take a great name she drops that hasn’t fallen since Edmund Wilson—the reincarnation of F.R. Leavis. To be sure Chu’s Chat-GPTish rendering of Wilsonian/Leavisian prose is daunting enough to earn her a seat as a Pulitzer winner. But scrape through it and you have a character very familiar to denizens of LA or New York or Austin these days: attention whorish, theatre kiddish, fluent in the language of their oppressor yet always looking for the angle to cancel them to death. These are the brats of today’s liberal bourgeoisie. They have a great appreciation for the sound of their own voice, but that soon may soon grow fainter and fainter.
The main thing I want to take away here is the not-even-trying quality of Chu’s look on the Emrata podcast: not trying to keep that paunch under wraps and not trying to be femme in any form or fashion I can imagine. I say I am Andrea and not Andy and so it must be so. Okay, but wait, why again? Because if you say otherwise I will kill myself. That’s the formula. And many people have accepted it because to do otherwise is to risk reputational oblivion.
Chu has a lot of gruesome writing in here about surgical invagination of the cock. It doesn’t sound like a great look, unlikely to supplant the great-looking vulvae of our living memory. (Chu doesn’t get too deep into this but have you heard about the smell? Well, there’s this connection to the entrails, it seems, and a sewerous smell of shit is at least occasionally a part of the formula�) She has a party where she invites friends to come to the funeral of Andrea Long Chu’s dick and�-
Let’s just freeze it right there. Here is where our politics—Chu refers annoyingly to that phrase “a politics”—have their rubber- meets-the-road moment. I have always recoiled from Andrea Long Chu’s writing, for all its polish, hard, non-AI research, and general air of erudition, because I have felt that Andrea Long Chu would really, really, really hate me.
She would hate me personally and most of the things I cherish: the beauty of young women, the taste of a well-composed icy Martini, the paintings of John Currin, the paroxysms of Norman Mailer, the dining room of the Carlyle, the electronic music of Luigi Nono, Emma Stone’s eyes, the sardonic plotting of John O’Hara. I could go on. But I imagine ALC’s goalie-leaping-in- midair riposte would be “But I’m crazy about Emma Stone’s freckles!�
No matter. We are in a tribal age and so we cling to those who are most like us or, on the outside, those who will not do us harm. We may pretend that our tribal disputes are moral arguments but they actually are not; they’re just “my team doesn’t like your team.� But I have made my peace with this.
There are many authors who might be indifferent to me; many who might have disliked me in real life out of sheer pique or snobbism or a million different neuroses. Those are all fine. No, the people I object to are the ones who specifically object *to me*; and I find it hard not to view Andrea Long Chu as someone who specifically seeks to wipe me out.
Silly, butthurt, ciswhitestraightmale snowflakery, you say? Well, Andrea cites two writers as her heroines: Valerie Solanas, zany playwright, Warhol shooter, and writer of that classic manifesto of the Society for Cutting Up Men; and Jill Johnston, who memorably disrupted Norman Mailer’s TOWN BLOODY HALL debate with a girl-on-girl make out session, and said political revolution can never come until all women are lesbians—one of many Johnston assertions ALC agrees with wholeheartedly, including that “heterosexual feminism is ultimately just a mating ritual.�
What I am saying here, in a rather legalistic, lay-out-the-charts way, is that I probably could never have any fun with Andrea Long Chu because, like all the autogynephiles I know, she can’t hang with normies and has no nostalgia for or feeling of pleasure in the old, pre-Internet world. She hysterically tears Bret Easton Ellis� WHITE to shreds� the one arguably too over the top piece in the book� because unlike him she can’t imagine any affection for cultural aspects of the old, woke-wasn’t-even-a-thing world. Can one imagine Andrea Long Chu watching a Robert Altman movie or listening to a Leonard Cohen album without teeing it up for destruction?
Think I am being a big sissy? And possibly a teeny bit unfair? Well, here are some highlights:
“‘it ain’t feminism if it ain’t intersectional,� tweeted Ariana Grande in 2019, echoing a viral blog post by the writer Flavin Dzoden.�
“Cinephilia is a progressive disease for which there is no cure.� So Ozu and Renoir, not to mention THE LOST BOYS, is just too bro-coded for ALC?
“Solovay introduces deep-sounding quotes from other authors like a middle schooler phoning in a Kate Chopin paper.� This is a major dog whistle to SJW Gen Y’s and Z’s. First the dreadful millennial locution “middle schooler”�.then, uh, what kinda “middle school� kids are reading Kate Chopin? News to me!
About halfway through the book Chu gets preachy, prescriptive, and seems to get off on assuming the vaguely rifle-over-the-shoulder menacing tone of a Maoist cadet. There are a lot of commands to do things God or the people’s or the party’s way and not your own decadent bourgeois individualist way. “But Moshfegh, who has spoken candidly of her struggle with bulimia and recently walked the runway for Mayaar Nassin Zadeh at New York Fashion Week, does not write about fat people.� Not only does the record CLEARLY INDICATE that Moshfegh is fat-exclusive, but Cadet Chu has proof positive that Moshfegh attended this very skinny and quite rich fashion event! Does Chu have in her head a public punishment for Ottessa Moshfegh, like forty lashes? I would reckon so.
[ENTR’ACTE: As I was writing these words I saw a gathering of AOC, Megan Rapinoe, and Nikole Hannah Jones, in which AOC said that this system—the American system of the last 250 years, which to her is coterminous with systemic racism and “late� (?) capitalism—“maybe deserves to decline.� Because, of course, she will create a “more just� system that works for purple-haired Olympic lesbians and purple-haired 1619 obsessives. And her own fine arse, of course. But I digress!]
Artistic freedom, that horribly American, individualistic thing, is anathema to Chu. And Moshfegh, that upper middle class Persian-American striver, is sinner #1. One cannot imagine these two getting along. Imagine the number of times Moshfegh’s eyes would stray to that tube of paunch pooching out of ALC’s failed would-be wifebeater! And so Moshfegh must be smacked down for her hubris: “She may truly be a great American novelist some day, if she learns to be less important.� Has anything ever sounded more like your grandmother telling you to get a better attitude? And more shocking regarding Moshfegh: “It must be convenient to believe in a God whose features consist of giving you divine permission to write whatever you want.� Pfft! Yeah! Who ‘d ever want something like THAT?
What Chu really gets down on fiction writers about is being insufficiently political. What this means practically is 1) they are not touching on the right present-day hot-button topics and 2) they are not signaling clearly to the reader that they are on the right side, the side of the Lord� ALC’s Lord. On a recent Bret Easton Ellis podcast, the literary biographer notes that he was warned to make it clear when he described a teacher’s life practice of offering up his cutest female students to Philip Roth as an after-lecture snack, that he, Bailey, must clearly signal to the readership that he personally abhors this practice. Bailey said he felt it absurd to have to add a sentence of scolding to his narrative. For Chu it’s all about being on the side of the angels. Derrida once said that a misogynistic text can be “more deconstructive”—of “patriarchy,� what have you—than a feminist text. Can one imagine ALC even sitting through, say, RAGING BULL or VERTIGO in this way? As Steve Sailer has his “noticing,� so do the Andrea Long Chus of the world have their remarking. They must make the right comment on some passing image of injustice. Has ALC trucked rice into Gaza or fed the homeless or picked up a rifle to join an army or even gone to a massive protest rally? Not that I’m aware. But she is very adamant that Zadie Smith must fix her brain from “psychological analyses� of her characters to political ones.
This is all a very Marvel/Star Wars kind of Asperger’s twitch: both novelists and their characters must be classified as black hats or white hats.
Andrea Long Chu dresses up an almost terrorist loathing of the normie as—to take a great name she drops that hasn’t fallen since Edmund Wilson—the reincarnation of F.R. Leavis. To be sure Chu’s Chat-GPTish rendering of Wilsonian/Leavisian prose is daunting enough to earn her a seat as a Pulitzer winner. But scrape through it and you have a character very familiar to denizens of LA or New York or Austin these days: attention whorish, theatre kiddish, fluent in the language of their oppressor yet always looking for the angle to cancel them to death. These are the brats of today’s liberal bourgeoisie. They have a great appreciation for the sound of their own voice, but that soon may soon grow fainter and fainter.
April 25, 2025
Truly some of my favorite writing being written these days - angry, brilliant, brutal, and full of certainty when we've been told that's the worst thing in ideas. She cuts through so much bullshit so effectively, thoroughly, and thrillingly. I do not think I could adore Andrea Long Chu more, even when she is eviscerating something I love (maybe I love her most then). No one else is doing it like this!!!!!
Some of my favorites in this collection:
- "In truth, Jude is a terribly unlovable character, always lying and breaking promises, with the inner monologue of an incorrigible child. The first time he cuts himself, you are horrified; the fiftieth, you wish he would aim."
- "Perhaps my consciousness needs raising. I muster a shrug."
- "For years now, Bret Easton Ellis has been accused of being a racist and a misogynist, and these things are true; but like most things that are true of Bret Easton Ellis, they are also very boring." (honestly will be reading this essay "Psycho Analysis" when I am sad for all the laughs)
- "It is harder, and smarter, to ask if politics ever transcends adolescent fantasy. Ziggy uses the political as an excuse for belonging. Are you telling me you don't?"
Some of my favorites in this collection:
- "In truth, Jude is a terribly unlovable character, always lying and breaking promises, with the inner monologue of an incorrigible child. The first time he cuts himself, you are horrified; the fiftieth, you wish he would aim."
- "Perhaps my consciousness needs raising. I muster a shrug."
- "For years now, Bret Easton Ellis has been accused of being a racist and a misogynist, and these things are true; but like most things that are true of Bret Easton Ellis, they are also very boring." (honestly will be reading this essay "Psycho Analysis" when I am sad for all the laughs)
- "It is harder, and smarter, to ask if politics ever transcends adolescent fantasy. Ziggy uses the political as an excuse for belonging. Are you telling me you don't?"
August 16, 2024
First and foremost, thank you to NetGalley and FSG for giving me access to this book's ARC in exchange for my thoughts.
This is a collection of two new essays and the remaining pieces already published online, from an author I always anticipate works from. She gives the kind of criticism I look forward to, as if criticism is something that is served on a silver platter, waiting to be consumed.
Rather criticism, especially from Andrea Long Chu, is a palette cleanser for me.
It grounds you to reality but also lifts you to imagination. Or better yet: to different areas of the room, places you haven't been to, or have at least acknowledged. Contrary to popular belief that one should be deterred from consuming the medium or form criticized, I often look forward to watching or reading from the artists and writers mentioned. It gives me a new, well-researched perspective on what to anticipate, what to look forward to. Who knows, maybe I agree with the criticism, or I don't. But I have to give credit to the author for turning my head towards a specific direction.
I don't want to say I find Chu to be a 'good' critic, because that is to say there is the looming (heavily fictionalized) 'bad' critic, which she has already expounded upon in the new 'Criticism in Crisis' essay:
The crisis in criticism thus depends on the mythological figure of the Bad Critic, whose badness must be constantly, hysterically reaffirmed to make the good critic look good.
Instead, I'd rather say she's an effective writer, whose criticism is something that makes me giggle at times, and heavily ruminate for the most part. These just hit the nail on the head oftentimes, of what makes me deterred from certain individuals' works. And now, I decided to be brave about them and delve into their oeuvres. I think that what distinguishes Chu from the rest: the ability to entice the reader into the medium all the while criticizing it. I don't know how she does it, but it works.
Her magic is indeed a mystery. I'm too deep in it to recognize and care.
So if all the critic does is provide food for thought, I say: let thought starve.
This epilogue guarantees that I should go out and do it: to become the authority I want to have, and not wait for the green light (I mean this metaphorically) from an ominous figure that we have all collectively created to be free from such responsibility. You have the ability to do so. We do not need to wait for someone to dictate what we ought to do. We just need to do it.
It sucks, I agree. But there's no better way to be ultimately free than to be on our own.
This is a collection of two new essays and the remaining pieces already published online, from an author I always anticipate works from. She gives the kind of criticism I look forward to, as if criticism is something that is served on a silver platter, waiting to be consumed.
Rather criticism, especially from Andrea Long Chu, is a palette cleanser for me.
It grounds you to reality but also lifts you to imagination. Or better yet: to different areas of the room, places you haven't been to, or have at least acknowledged. Contrary to popular belief that one should be deterred from consuming the medium or form criticized, I often look forward to watching or reading from the artists and writers mentioned. It gives me a new, well-researched perspective on what to anticipate, what to look forward to. Who knows, maybe I agree with the criticism, or I don't. But I have to give credit to the author for turning my head towards a specific direction.
I don't want to say I find Chu to be a 'good' critic, because that is to say there is the looming (heavily fictionalized) 'bad' critic, which she has already expounded upon in the new 'Criticism in Crisis' essay:
The crisis in criticism thus depends on the mythological figure of the Bad Critic, whose badness must be constantly, hysterically reaffirmed to make the good critic look good.
Instead, I'd rather say she's an effective writer, whose criticism is something that makes me giggle at times, and heavily ruminate for the most part. These just hit the nail on the head oftentimes, of what makes me deterred from certain individuals' works. And now, I decided to be brave about them and delve into their oeuvres. I think that what distinguishes Chu from the rest: the ability to entice the reader into the medium all the while criticizing it. I don't know how she does it, but it works.
Her magic is indeed a mystery. I'm too deep in it to recognize and care.
So if all the critic does is provide food for thought, I say: let thought starve.
This epilogue guarantees that I should go out and do it: to become the authority I want to have, and not wait for the green light (I mean this metaphorically) from an ominous figure that we have all collectively created to be free from such responsibility. You have the ability to do so. We do not need to wait for someone to dictate what we ought to do. We just need to do it.
It sucks, I agree. But there's no better way to be ultimately free than to be on our own.
April 26, 2025
One must wonder what Andrea Long Chu thinks about Substack.
The experience of reading “Hanya’s Boys� in print (figuratively, since I actually read this as an ebook) alone makes this entire essay collection worth it. “Psycho Analysis� is a close second in terms of being another hilarious takedown piece. The Zadie Smith essay, “Likely People,� was also a fun read, as works of criticism on other critics always are (might I also suggest “Star Struck,� Ann Manov’s piece on Lauren Oyler, and “Ha ha! Ha ha!�, Oyler’s piece on Jia Tolentino). If like me, you have also spent many hours pondering the ethical nature of Wasians, then read “The Mixed Metaphor.�
Regarding the opening piece, “Criticism in a Crisis,� one of her newer works for this collection, I found it really interesting that Chu uses “she� as the universal pronoun when talking about the critic as a concept. This choice reminded me of Les Guérillères by Monique Wittig, but is more likely more related to Chu’s own ideologies explained in Females. The other new piece in this collection, the titular “Authority,� was more so an academic essay than a work of criticism and was much more lackluster. The research is clearly very thorough, but I think this essay also works to prove Chu’s own assertion that the value of criticism partially lies in the personal perspective a critic can bring to their stance and judgment, since I found this essay quite boring without Chu’s characteristic voice, despite the high quality writing.
Overall, reading smart writing is an exhilarating experience, and there’s nothing I love more than reading other people’s opinions on pop culture.
The experience of reading “Hanya’s Boys� in print (figuratively, since I actually read this as an ebook) alone makes this entire essay collection worth it. “Psycho Analysis� is a close second in terms of being another hilarious takedown piece. The Zadie Smith essay, “Likely People,� was also a fun read, as works of criticism on other critics always are (might I also suggest “Star Struck,� Ann Manov’s piece on Lauren Oyler, and “Ha ha! Ha ha!�, Oyler’s piece on Jia Tolentino). If like me, you have also spent many hours pondering the ethical nature of Wasians, then read “The Mixed Metaphor.�
Regarding the opening piece, “Criticism in a Crisis,� one of her newer works for this collection, I found it really interesting that Chu uses “she� as the universal pronoun when talking about the critic as a concept. This choice reminded me of Les Guérillères by Monique Wittig, but is more likely more related to Chu’s own ideologies explained in Females. The other new piece in this collection, the titular “Authority,� was more so an academic essay than a work of criticism and was much more lackluster. The research is clearly very thorough, but I think this essay also works to prove Chu’s own assertion that the value of criticism partially lies in the personal perspective a critic can bring to their stance and judgment, since I found this essay quite boring without Chu’s characteristic voice, despite the high quality writing.
Overall, reading smart writing is an exhilarating experience, and there’s nothing I love more than reading other people’s opinions on pop culture.
April 21, 2025
Catharsis: noun
1. The act of reading Andrea Long Chu’s searingly critical and immensely clever reviews of books and authors you also dislike.
Chu takes aim and fires hitting the bullseye in each essay in this collection. I was repeatedly stunned at the level of word play and wit in Chu’s take downs. I was equally stunned at the brilliance and research required to craft them. If you read books by love-them-or-hate-them authors like Ottessa Moshfegh or Hanya Yanagihara and fall on the hate side of the spectrum (I wouldn’t say I hate but I definitely don’t like) but can’t fully articulate your ideas of why you disliked them, read this book. Andrea Long Chu puts it better than you ever will be able to. This was initially what drew me to the book, and Authority lived up to that expectation completely.
But knowing nothing of Andrea Long Chu’s work prior to reading this, I can say the stand out essay in the collection was On Liking Women, which was so well written, earnest and enlightening about trans desire and identity and the deficiencies of second wave feminism that I felt equal parts moved and educated by the end. It’s an essay I know I’ll reread.
My least favorite essay was actually the titular one about authority which traced the concept’s origins back to enlightenment thinkers and philosophers, ultimately calling for a reorientation in literary criticism that diminishes its long held central emphasis on authority. I found this essay long and droning, at times pedantic, and I lost the analytical arc more than once. Honestly It just went over my head which I fully acknowledge may be because of my own shortcomings not Chu’s.
Writing this review of a master critic like Chu feels silly, knowing she could eviscerate it too with little effort, but I’m writing it anyway. Thanks netgalley for the E-arc!
1. The act of reading Andrea Long Chu’s searingly critical and immensely clever reviews of books and authors you also dislike.
Chu takes aim and fires hitting the bullseye in each essay in this collection. I was repeatedly stunned at the level of word play and wit in Chu’s take downs. I was equally stunned at the brilliance and research required to craft them. If you read books by love-them-or-hate-them authors like Ottessa Moshfegh or Hanya Yanagihara and fall on the hate side of the spectrum (I wouldn’t say I hate but I definitely don’t like) but can’t fully articulate your ideas of why you disliked them, read this book. Andrea Long Chu puts it better than you ever will be able to. This was initially what drew me to the book, and Authority lived up to that expectation completely.
But knowing nothing of Andrea Long Chu’s work prior to reading this, I can say the stand out essay in the collection was On Liking Women, which was so well written, earnest and enlightening about trans desire and identity and the deficiencies of second wave feminism that I felt equal parts moved and educated by the end. It’s an essay I know I’ll reread.
My least favorite essay was actually the titular one about authority which traced the concept’s origins back to enlightenment thinkers and philosophers, ultimately calling for a reorientation in literary criticism that diminishes its long held central emphasis on authority. I found this essay long and droning, at times pedantic, and I lost the analytical arc more than once. Honestly It just went over my head which I fully acknowledge may be because of my own shortcomings not Chu’s.
Writing this review of a master critic like Chu feels silly, knowing she could eviscerate it too with little effort, but I’m writing it anyway. Thanks netgalley for the E-arc!
April 15, 2025
I've followed Andrea Long Chu's criticism for a few years now, and whenever I see she's published something new, I immediately click. She is an incisive critic, and I've admired her (what could be called) takedowns of , , and , among others. These essays, along with dozens of others, populate the new collection Authority. Revisiting, or newly reading, the previously published essays was a treat. I don't always agree with Long Chu's conclusions, but I appreciate her turns of phrase and her perspectives.
In addition to these sharper critiques, Long Chu tackles the question of authority and the role of criticism in the 21st century, tracing the historiography of criticism as an art. Her central thesis—that criticism must be embedded in its historical and social context—doesn't seem that radical, but it contradicts decades and centuries of the critic as an impartial judge of aesthetics, proclaiming taste based on some nebulous authority. I want to revisit that essay again because there was so much to unpack.
If you are a fan of literary criticism, definitely pick this one up.
In addition to these sharper critiques, Long Chu tackles the question of authority and the role of criticism in the 21st century, tracing the historiography of criticism as an art. Her central thesis—that criticism must be embedded in its historical and social context—doesn't seem that radical, but it contradicts decades and centuries of the critic as an impartial judge of aesthetics, proclaiming taste based on some nebulous authority. I want to revisit that essay again because there was so much to unpack.
If you are a fan of literary criticism, definitely pick this one up.
March 29, 2025
These essays are SHARP and so on point. They dissect a subject into pieces that, at the very least, causes pause in the read, and at the most, has the head bobbing up and down. There is a reason why the author won the Pulitzer for Criticism. I had to read these in doses bc I wanted to think about each one.
Want to read
April 14, 2025i'm so sat. the bookstore employees are telling me to leave because it's not available yet but i'm too sat
October 22, 2024
4/5 ⭐️
obrigada à netgalley e à editora farrar, straus and giroux, por me darem acesso ao ARC deste livro em troca da minha opinião sincera!
authority , que estará disponível dia 8 de abril de 2025, é uma coleção de ensaios sobre uma vasta paleta de tópicos, tanto atuais como intemporais, da autora andrea long chu, vencedora do pulitzer prize, em 2017.
para mim, o mais interessante deste livro não foi propriamente ver opiniões semelhantes às minhas, articuladas de uma forma muito mais culta e acessível, mas sim refletir sobre os pontos de vista que divergiam dos meus. chu nunca apresenta as suas posições (bastante fortes e polémicas) sem dar um contexto histórico ou académico para as justificar. um excelente equilibrio entre a autoridade da opinião firme e estruturada da autora, com a liberdade para a questionarmos a seguir, através dos recursos e referências mencionados, de forma a construirmos os nossos próprios juizos, de acordo com as nossas convicções.
estes ensaios incluem críticas !!implacáveis!! (que eu amei, mesmo apreciando as obras dos autores) a hanya yanagihara (a little life, to paradise, the people in the trees), ottessa moshfegh (my year of rest and relaxation, lapvona, eileen), bret easton ellis (american psycho, the shards, less than zero), maggie nelson (the argonauts, bluets, on freedom), tao lin (taipei, leave society, trip: psychedelics, alienation, and change), octavia e. butler e zadie smith (white teeth, on beauty, the fraud), acompanhadas sempre de excertos de entrevistas ou factos das suas vidas, que validam a posição de andrea, que por muito negativa possa ser, tenta (na maioria das vezes) ser construtiva.
andrea fala do jogo the last of us e o respetivo sucesso da sua adapatação para a televisão, a série yellowjackets, big little lies e game of thrones, mas não deixa para trás temas como o genocídio em gaza, o império do capitalismo, separar a política da arte, racismo, machismo, feminismo, homosexualidade, assim como as suas reflexões pessoais sobre o seu percurso como mulher transexual. não falta variedade!
alguns dos autores utilizados como referências nos seus argumentos incluem oscar wilde, susan sontag, james baldwin, virginia woolf, hannah arendt, immanuel kant, w. h. auden, valerie solanas, ned block, john searle, samuel johnson, cicero, herbert marcuse, martin luther, thomas hobbes, max weber, david hume, edmund burke, samuel taylor coleridge, matthew arnold, walter pater, irving babbitt, john crowe ransom, harold bloom, adam kirsch, jay caspian kang, celeste ng, ruth ozeki, nella larsen, amy tan, claire stanford, kyle lucia wi, rowan hisayo buchanan, claire kohda, michelle zauner, david foster wallace, cervantes, entre muitos outros.
nada nem ninguém ficam de fora da análise de andrea long chu, uma voz refrescante e cheia de personalidade, que não tem medo de questionar opiniões consensuais, sempre acompanhada de uma pesquisa muito interessante. uma autora que gostei de descobrir nesta coleção e que, sem dúvida, irei acompanhar no futuro. recomendo !!!
english review: ─────── � �
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for giving me access to this book's ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
Authority, which will be available on April 8, 2025, is a collection of essays on a wide range of topics, both current and timeless, by author Andrea Long Chu, Pulitzer Prize winner in 2017.
For me, the most interesting aspect of this book was not so much seeing opinions similar to mine articulated in a much more enlightened and accessible way, but rather reflecting on the viewpoints that diverged from my own. Chu never presents her (quite strong and controversial) positions without providing a historical or academic context to justify them. There’s an excellent balance between the firm, structured opinions of the author and the freedom to question them afterward, using the resources and references mentioned to build our own judgments according to our convictions.
These essays include !!relentless!! critiques (which I loved, even while appreciating the works of the authors) of Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life, To Paradise, The People in the Trees), Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Lapvona, Eileen), Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, The Shards, Less Than Zero), Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts, Bluets, On Freedom), Tao Lin (Taipei, Leave Society, Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change), Octavia E. Butler, and Zadie Smith (White Teeth, On Beauty, The Fraud), always accompanied by excerpts from interviews or facts about their lives that validate Andrea's position, which, no matter how negative it may be, often tries to be constructive.
Andrea discusses the game The Last of Us and the success of its television adaptation, the series Yellowjackets, Big Little Lies, and Game of Thrones, but she doesn’t shy away from themes like the genocide in Gaza, the empire of capitalism, separating politics from art, racism, sexism, feminism, homosexuality, as well as her personal reflections on her journey as a trans woman. She said RANGE!
Some of the authors used as references in her arguments include Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, Immanuel Kant, W. H. Auden, Valerie Solanas, Ned Block, John Searle, Samuel Johnson, Cicero, Herbert Marcuse, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, Max Weber, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, Irving Babbitt, John Crowe Ransom, Harold Bloom, Adam Kirsch, Jay Caspian Kang, Celeste Ng, Ruth Ozeki, Nella Larsen, Amy Tan, Claire Stanford, Kyle Lucia Wu, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Claire Kohda, Michelle Zauner, David Foster Wallace, Cervantes, among many others.
Nothing and no one is left out of Andrea Long Chu’s analysis, a refreshing voice full of personality that isn’t afraid to challenge consensual opinions, always accompanied by very interesting research. An author I enjoyed discovering in this collection and whom I will undoubtedly follow in the future. Highly recommend!!!
obrigada à netgalley e à editora farrar, straus and giroux, por me darem acesso ao ARC deste livro em troca da minha opinião sincera!
authority , que estará disponível dia 8 de abril de 2025, é uma coleção de ensaios sobre uma vasta paleta de tópicos, tanto atuais como intemporais, da autora andrea long chu, vencedora do pulitzer prize, em 2017.
para mim, o mais interessante deste livro não foi propriamente ver opiniões semelhantes às minhas, articuladas de uma forma muito mais culta e acessível, mas sim refletir sobre os pontos de vista que divergiam dos meus. chu nunca apresenta as suas posições (bastante fortes e polémicas) sem dar um contexto histórico ou académico para as justificar. um excelente equilibrio entre a autoridade da opinião firme e estruturada da autora, com a liberdade para a questionarmos a seguir, através dos recursos e referências mencionados, de forma a construirmos os nossos próprios juizos, de acordo com as nossas convicções.
estes ensaios incluem críticas !!implacáveis!! (que eu amei, mesmo apreciando as obras dos autores) a hanya yanagihara (a little life, to paradise, the people in the trees), ottessa moshfegh (my year of rest and relaxation, lapvona, eileen), bret easton ellis (american psycho, the shards, less than zero), maggie nelson (the argonauts, bluets, on freedom), tao lin (taipei, leave society, trip: psychedelics, alienation, and change), octavia e. butler e zadie smith (white teeth, on beauty, the fraud), acompanhadas sempre de excertos de entrevistas ou factos das suas vidas, que validam a posição de andrea, que por muito negativa possa ser, tenta (na maioria das vezes) ser construtiva.
andrea fala do jogo the last of us e o respetivo sucesso da sua adapatação para a televisão, a série yellowjackets, big little lies e game of thrones, mas não deixa para trás temas como o genocídio em gaza, o império do capitalismo, separar a política da arte, racismo, machismo, feminismo, homosexualidade, assim como as suas reflexões pessoais sobre o seu percurso como mulher transexual. não falta variedade!
alguns dos autores utilizados como referências nos seus argumentos incluem oscar wilde, susan sontag, james baldwin, virginia woolf, hannah arendt, immanuel kant, w. h. auden, valerie solanas, ned block, john searle, samuel johnson, cicero, herbert marcuse, martin luther, thomas hobbes, max weber, david hume, edmund burke, samuel taylor coleridge, matthew arnold, walter pater, irving babbitt, john crowe ransom, harold bloom, adam kirsch, jay caspian kang, celeste ng, ruth ozeki, nella larsen, amy tan, claire stanford, kyle lucia wi, rowan hisayo buchanan, claire kohda, michelle zauner, david foster wallace, cervantes, entre muitos outros.
nada nem ninguém ficam de fora da análise de andrea long chu, uma voz refrescante e cheia de personalidade, que não tem medo de questionar opiniões consensuais, sempre acompanhada de uma pesquisa muito interessante. uma autora que gostei de descobrir nesta coleção e que, sem dúvida, irei acompanhar no futuro. recomendo !!!
english review: ─────── � �
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for giving me access to this book's ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
Authority, which will be available on April 8, 2025, is a collection of essays on a wide range of topics, both current and timeless, by author Andrea Long Chu, Pulitzer Prize winner in 2017.
For me, the most interesting aspect of this book was not so much seeing opinions similar to mine articulated in a much more enlightened and accessible way, but rather reflecting on the viewpoints that diverged from my own. Chu never presents her (quite strong and controversial) positions without providing a historical or academic context to justify them. There’s an excellent balance between the firm, structured opinions of the author and the freedom to question them afterward, using the resources and references mentioned to build our own judgments according to our convictions.
These essays include !!relentless!! critiques (which I loved, even while appreciating the works of the authors) of Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life, To Paradise, The People in the Trees), Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Lapvona, Eileen), Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, The Shards, Less Than Zero), Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts, Bluets, On Freedom), Tao Lin (Taipei, Leave Society, Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change), Octavia E. Butler, and Zadie Smith (White Teeth, On Beauty, The Fraud), always accompanied by excerpts from interviews or facts about their lives that validate Andrea's position, which, no matter how negative it may be, often tries to be constructive.
Andrea discusses the game The Last of Us and the success of its television adaptation, the series Yellowjackets, Big Little Lies, and Game of Thrones, but she doesn’t shy away from themes like the genocide in Gaza, the empire of capitalism, separating politics from art, racism, sexism, feminism, homosexuality, as well as her personal reflections on her journey as a trans woman. She said RANGE!
Some of the authors used as references in her arguments include Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, Immanuel Kant, W. H. Auden, Valerie Solanas, Ned Block, John Searle, Samuel Johnson, Cicero, Herbert Marcuse, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, Max Weber, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, Irving Babbitt, John Crowe Ransom, Harold Bloom, Adam Kirsch, Jay Caspian Kang, Celeste Ng, Ruth Ozeki, Nella Larsen, Amy Tan, Claire Stanford, Kyle Lucia Wu, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Claire Kohda, Michelle Zauner, David Foster Wallace, Cervantes, among many others.
Nothing and no one is left out of Andrea Long Chu’s analysis, a refreshing voice full of personality that isn’t afraid to challenge consensual opinions, always accompanied by very interesting research. An author I enjoyed discovering in this collection and whom I will undoubtedly follow in the future. Highly recommend!!!
August 30, 2024
Authority: Essays simultaneously made me feel like I was back in the lecture hall and like I was hearing an especially eloquent friend rip into something they disliked. I appreciate Chu’s work even more as I’m trying to write a review of her reviews.
Chu structures Authority into five parts. Most essays are previously published, but the collection begins with the new “Criticism in a Crisis� as the first essay and slots in “Authority� in part four. These essays lean deeper into history than her others, which have more specific and modern topics. One essay, “China Brain," is her most narrative, offering a third-person perspective from the person and a first-person perspective from her brain (hm, my brain’s not explaining this well, is it?) on Chu’s journey with mental illness and treatment. Most other works center around reviewing media such as the TV shows The Last of Us and Yellowjackets or the books of Ottessa Moshfegh and Hanya Yanagihara.
Because these essays are both new and already published, the different years that these are written are a time capsule in it of themselves. “Votes for Woman,� a review on Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham, sent me into an internet spiral where I had discovered the review had a lore of its own (An interviewer mentioned it to Sittenfeld! Sittenfeld admitted she read it!). I appreciated the note at the end of the “Psycho Analysis� that printed the original final paragraph that was previously purged when it was first published in 2019.
I’m also kicking myself a bit for reading a collection of critical essays of books and shows, of which some I have not read or watched yet. However, through a combination of Chu’s incisive language and my own aforementioned intellectual hubris, I feel as though I have, and even more delusionally, come up with these takes myself. She lays them out so nicely that some of her more biting comments on sexism, ignorance, or even just plain insufferableness made me wonder how the subject in question cannot see the depths of their folly (“’Social-justice warriors never think like artists,� Ellis declares, as if this is a sentence� is a personal favorite). Who said politics should be left out of art?
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Girous for the e-ARC!
Chu structures Authority into five parts. Most essays are previously published, but the collection begins with the new “Criticism in a Crisis� as the first essay and slots in “Authority� in part four. These essays lean deeper into history than her others, which have more specific and modern topics. One essay, “China Brain," is her most narrative, offering a third-person perspective from the person and a first-person perspective from her brain (hm, my brain’s not explaining this well, is it?) on Chu’s journey with mental illness and treatment. Most other works center around reviewing media such as the TV shows The Last of Us and Yellowjackets or the books of Ottessa Moshfegh and Hanya Yanagihara.
Because these essays are both new and already published, the different years that these are written are a time capsule in it of themselves. “Votes for Woman,� a review on Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham, sent me into an internet spiral where I had discovered the review had a lore of its own (An interviewer mentioned it to Sittenfeld! Sittenfeld admitted she read it!). I appreciated the note at the end of the “Psycho Analysis� that printed the original final paragraph that was previously purged when it was first published in 2019.
I’m also kicking myself a bit for reading a collection of critical essays of books and shows, of which some I have not read or watched yet. However, through a combination of Chu’s incisive language and my own aforementioned intellectual hubris, I feel as though I have, and even more delusionally, come up with these takes myself. She lays them out so nicely that some of her more biting comments on sexism, ignorance, or even just plain insufferableness made me wonder how the subject in question cannot see the depths of their folly (“’Social-justice warriors never think like artists,� Ellis declares, as if this is a sentence� is a personal favorite). Who said politics should be left out of art?
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Girous for the e-ARC!
Read
October 16, 2024new-ish reviewer who cannot write pls bear w me 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
it feels like for a long time there has been a division of pop culture and literary analysis and i feel that for a long time the two have been viewed in completely different lenses when they shouldn’t have been !! and i think this book ties that together perfectly
the author is acc so much more eloquent than i could aspire to be omg. many of the essays in this book view tv shows, books, and movies in the context of their (our current) societies. by tracking certain themes and recurring motifs in the pieces of media analyzed, the author uses these pop culture (artifacts?? antiques ????) as vehicles to describe patterns in our current society with what feels like perfect ease. reading alc’s writing is like watching simone biles at the olympics� effortless and so so impressive omg.
the personal essays are more personal to me. i def cried over a few and there were many moments that felt incredibly relatable and real. i did send my bsf “china brain� late at night and force her to read it. alc’s philosophy of using criticism as a sharp knife rather than a dull cleaver establishes a brutally honest tone which, in her personal essays, turn out to be more devastating than dry and it is so lovely 10/10 would read again
the titular essay is stunning. alc rlly ate w this one. unfortunately a lot of it went over my head so i prob need to revisit it in 10 years�.good thing i will most def be buying this book as soon as it comes out 😭😭
overall i rlly rlly like that alc pursues insights abt society thru the lens of pop culture. their writing is so so delicious.
ty netgalley + fsg for the arc !!
April 24, 2025
This is a difficult collection to review, because while Andrea Long Chu’s writing is lovely and thought-provoking, a lot of the content here isn’t wonderful.
This is a selection of Chu’s published work, and it’s difficult to get past the fact that every piece here has a largely negative bent to it. Critics are, by definition, critical. But to either find fault with everything you discuss or to choose only to include fault-finding pieces in a collection has a lot of—to put it in a way I’m sure Chu would take issue with—real hater energy.
I think Chu makes some salient points at times, even when she’s after something many of us like. But when the attack starts to feel like the point, that’s no longer good criticism. The mean-spiritedness of the section on Curtis Sittenfeld as well as the exacting semantic attacks on Zadie Smith feel petty, and that takes away from the parts where she’s got it right, as when she very justifiably shreds Bret Easton Ellis.
A lot of the more political content feels correct in spirit but shopworn, and the Yale Review Piece on this collection got a lot more right about the nature and purpose of criticism than this book did.
The most enjoyable part of this was Chu’s funny and poignant piece on Phantom of the Opera, which felt both fairly critical and entertaining. More of that would have gone a long way, as Chu’s writing is notably excellent and could be put to better use than it is for the most part here.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
This is a selection of Chu’s published work, and it’s difficult to get past the fact that every piece here has a largely negative bent to it. Critics are, by definition, critical. But to either find fault with everything you discuss or to choose only to include fault-finding pieces in a collection has a lot of—to put it in a way I’m sure Chu would take issue with—real hater energy.
I think Chu makes some salient points at times, even when she’s after something many of us like. But when the attack starts to feel like the point, that’s no longer good criticism. The mean-spiritedness of the section on Curtis Sittenfeld as well as the exacting semantic attacks on Zadie Smith feel petty, and that takes away from the parts where she’s got it right, as when she very justifiably shreds Bret Easton Ellis.
A lot of the more political content feels correct in spirit but shopworn, and the Yale Review Piece on this collection got a lot more right about the nature and purpose of criticism than this book did.
The most enjoyable part of this was Chu’s funny and poignant piece on Phantom of the Opera, which felt both fairly critical and entertaining. More of that would have gone a long way, as Chu’s writing is notably excellent and could be put to better use than it is for the most part here.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Read
December 28, 2024Reading Andrea Long Chu is always a treat. It makes me feel smart but also not really, as she deftly analyzes TV shows, politics or books with sharpness and style, blowing a resolution at the end that is about what she was talking about, but also, not really. That’s why I’d always want to read her: I never know what’s going to happen next in the essay, and, even when it wraps up beautifully, I’m still left with questions.
“From the beginning, then, criticism had to reckon with two interlocking problems of authority, one literary, the other political. In order to criticize well, the critic would need both the critical authority that derived from his own free use of reason and the freedom to publish his criticism without being suspected of posing a threat to the actual authorities.�
“Nothing may be more dangerous, in criticism or in politics, than the revanchist desire to restore a form of authority that, if we are being honest, never existed in the first place.�
“The only measure of judgement is more judgement: that is what it means to try to live together with other human beings.�
“This, for the reader eager to skip to the end, is the secret of all real authority: money.�
“Cis women hate when trans women envy them, perhaps because they cannot imagine that they are in possession of anything worth envying. We have this, at least, in common: two kinds of women, with two kinds of self-loathing.�
Thanks netgalley for the e-arc!
“From the beginning, then, criticism had to reckon with two interlocking problems of authority, one literary, the other political. In order to criticize well, the critic would need both the critical authority that derived from his own free use of reason and the freedom to publish his criticism without being suspected of posing a threat to the actual authorities.�
“Nothing may be more dangerous, in criticism or in politics, than the revanchist desire to restore a form of authority that, if we are being honest, never existed in the first place.�
“The only measure of judgement is more judgement: that is what it means to try to live together with other human beings.�
“This, for the reader eager to skip to the end, is the secret of all real authority: money.�
“Cis women hate when trans women envy them, perhaps because they cannot imagine that they are in possession of anything worth envying. We have this, at least, in common: two kinds of women, with two kinds of self-loathing.�
Thanks netgalley for the e-arc!
April 6, 2025
“That is the dark comedy of the desire we call feminism: we are ethically compelled not only never to get what we want, but never to stop wanting it, either.�
Andrea Long Chu is a hell of a critic of our time—her absolute slaughter of Pamela Paul (--from .) was not only perfect, and so deserved, but it’s a great example of why she earns the title of great critic—and this is a collection of her work along with new pieces, including a history on criticism. I love her voice, and so I did a massive amount of gardening in one day (physically paid the price later) because I didn’t want to stop listening. I also love when writers put together collections of their work like this and leave the original work untouched but add at the end their new thoughts. (Hanif Abdurraqib did this with They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which I also highly recommend)
--from
Andrea Long Chu is a hell of a critic of our time—her absolute slaughter of Pamela Paul (--from .) was not only perfect, and so deserved, but it’s a great example of why she earns the title of great critic—and this is a collection of her work along with new pieces, including a history on criticism. I love her voice, and so I did a massive amount of gardening in one day (physically paid the price later) because I didn’t want to stop listening. I also love when writers put together collections of their work like this and leave the original work untouched but add at the end their new thoughts. (Hanif Abdurraqib did this with They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which I also highly recommend)
--from
April 11, 2025
I pre-ordered the audiobook version of Andrea Long Chu’s Authority after delighting in her essay Hanya’s Boys - one of her notable “take downs� that were included in this collection of essays. Her masterful wielding of her pen as sword to strike down her literary targets thrilled me - Long Chu is smart and has needle sharp precision in her attacks on literary giants - I love this about her.
This collection was mostly good. Except�.when she talked about transness.
Her essays about trans women “On Liking Women� and “Pink� most notably, are cringeworthy at best, and juvenile at worst. Her “hot takes� are embarrassing - reductive, weird and clearly written from the perspective of someone newly exploring their identity. Cringe cringe cringe. The authors notes included in the book indicate as much - she seems to want to distance herself from these early essays as her perspectives seem to have evolved, grown up, as many trans women do once the shock of newfound womanhood wanes.
The books “title track� Authority was boring and skippable.
The rest however I greatly enjoyed. When she’s right she’s SO right.
I gave this book 4 stars because I so admire Long Chu as a critic, and she is really a brilliant writer, that cannot be diminished by her awkward early work.
Looking forward to more takedowns!!!!
This collection was mostly good. Except�.when she talked about transness.
Her essays about trans women “On Liking Women� and “Pink� most notably, are cringeworthy at best, and juvenile at worst. Her “hot takes� are embarrassing - reductive, weird and clearly written from the perspective of someone newly exploring their identity. Cringe cringe cringe. The authors notes included in the book indicate as much - she seems to want to distance herself from these early essays as her perspectives seem to have evolved, grown up, as many trans women do once the shock of newfound womanhood wanes.
The books “title track� Authority was boring and skippable.
The rest however I greatly enjoyed. When she’s right she’s SO right.
I gave this book 4 stars because I so admire Long Chu as a critic, and she is really a brilliant writer, that cannot be diminished by her awkward early work.
Looking forward to more takedowns!!!!
September 25, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
I do love a good book where an author decides to rip into things politely, delicately, and with decorum. It's always so satisfying to see the deconstruction of ideas in that kind of way, sort of like an autopsy - it's fascinating, a bit gory, and it leaves you with an appreciation for the art. While I haven't engaged with all the pieces of media that Chu speaks about throughout the book, I have engaged with enough that I can appreciate her perspective on things.
I will say my absolute favourite was the essay on Andrew Lloyd Webber, to which I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement whilst reading. I will say that I found the media critiques the best part of this book, although I can appreciate commentary on identity (of varying forms) and critics just as much. It was a sole matter of finding slightly more joy in the media criticisms and the often marvelously snarky commentary, layered with social emphasis.
This book was fun, meaningful, if not slightly confused in places as to the theme of the collection. Definitely well worth a read, even if just for a few marvellous takedowns.
I do love a good book where an author decides to rip into things politely, delicately, and with decorum. It's always so satisfying to see the deconstruction of ideas in that kind of way, sort of like an autopsy - it's fascinating, a bit gory, and it leaves you with an appreciation for the art. While I haven't engaged with all the pieces of media that Chu speaks about throughout the book, I have engaged with enough that I can appreciate her perspective on things.
I will say my absolute favourite was the essay on Andrew Lloyd Webber, to which I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement whilst reading. I will say that I found the media critiques the best part of this book, although I can appreciate commentary on identity (of varying forms) and critics just as much. It was a sole matter of finding slightly more joy in the media criticisms and the often marvelously snarky commentary, layered with social emphasis.
This book was fun, meaningful, if not slightly confused in places as to the theme of the collection. Definitely well worth a read, even if just for a few marvellous takedowns.
November 24, 2024
Reading this felt like I was in some kind of intellectual slasher film in which I'm being stalked by someone far more intelligent than I am. Around every corner was the glinting blade, poised above the head of an unwitting author and/or cultural figure.
Great sentences here. Snort-worthy jabs at people who are easy to hate, gently nestled within insightful and well-argued criticisms.
Something that felt almost like a running gag was the author's distaste for Bret Easton-Ellis. He is excoriated in a piece regarding his abysmal essay collection midway through the book, only for his bloated corpse to be exhumed later as an ancillary jab during another author's round in the stocks. Amazing stuff.
I found the personal essay section to be the weakest. Many of these fall victim to millennial brain rot, which seeps into the writing like black mould on the bathroom wall of an old house. At its worst, some of those essays feel as though the author is a round of SSRIs away from talking about heckin puppers.
Overall a very assured, highly-articulate collection of work, collecting some of the best criticism currently being published.
Great sentences here. Snort-worthy jabs at people who are easy to hate, gently nestled within insightful and well-argued criticisms.
Something that felt almost like a running gag was the author's distaste for Bret Easton-Ellis. He is excoriated in a piece regarding his abysmal essay collection midway through the book, only for his bloated corpse to be exhumed later as an ancillary jab during another author's round in the stocks. Amazing stuff.
I found the personal essay section to be the weakest. Many of these fall victim to millennial brain rot, which seeps into the writing like black mould on the bathroom wall of an old house. At its worst, some of those essays feel as though the author is a round of SSRIs away from talking about heckin puppers.
Overall a very assured, highly-articulate collection of work, collecting some of the best criticism currently being published.
April 4, 2025
Authority
Andrea Long Chu
ALC courtesy of MacMillan Audio and NetGalley.
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. With the internet and social media, these opinions, qualified or otherwise, abound. More often than not, review sites become fora of popularity contests and, unfortunately, a reader wanting to just find out if he or she will like a book before buying it often has to plow through a briar patch of bullshit to get anywhere.
Andrea Long Chu’s view, in the title essay, that people look to critics not for opinions, but for judgement, is on point. Criticism is in itself an art form. Sadly, many reviews even in the institutions we previously looked to for literary guidance such as the New York Times and the New Yorker, stay in the middle of the lane for fear of hampering sales and antagonizing sponsors. Sometimes, we just want to hear the verdict, from a qualified, authoritative judge.
Bravo.
Andrea Long Chu
ALC courtesy of MacMillan Audio and NetGalley.
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. With the internet and social media, these opinions, qualified or otherwise, abound. More often than not, review sites become fora of popularity contests and, unfortunately, a reader wanting to just find out if he or she will like a book before buying it often has to plow through a briar patch of bullshit to get anywhere.
Andrea Long Chu’s view, in the title essay, that people look to critics not for opinions, but for judgement, is on point. Criticism is in itself an art form. Sadly, many reviews even in the institutions we previously looked to for literary guidance such as the New York Times and the New Yorker, stay in the middle of the lane for fear of hampering sales and antagonizing sponsors. Sometimes, we just want to hear the verdict, from a qualified, authoritative judge.
Bravo.
October 6, 2024
NetGalley ARC Review:
I am a student of literature and criticism. I spend my prescribed academic hours dissecting fiction and autobiography and poetry - then return home and review upcoming publications in my spare time. I breathe literature every day, from as many sources as I have time to scrounge through.
I am aware, therefore, that I fall in the exact target demographic for a series of leftist intellectual critiques on power and narrative. If I had to critique Chu, I would say that she sometimes confuses ‘sharp� and ‘cutting� for synonyms. An ironically relevant line from her second essay, ‘Hanya’s Boys�, springs to mind: “The first time [Jude, protagonist in Yanagihara’s A Little Life] cuts himself, you are horrified; the fiftieth time, you wish he would aim.� In general, though, comments like these don’t define any of the essays� intentions; often, they are sweepingly outrageous enough to be genuinely funny (“If A Little Life was opera, it was not La Boheme; it was Rent.�)
I hope that this anthology will introduce people with perhaps more balanced reading habits than mine to see the real beauty in thoughtful, well-researched criticism. It is clear that Chu sees the beauty in the craft already.
-
I am grateful, whatever my personal views expressed, for the opportunity provided to me by NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux to read this ARC.
I am a student of literature and criticism. I spend my prescribed academic hours dissecting fiction and autobiography and poetry - then return home and review upcoming publications in my spare time. I breathe literature every day, from as many sources as I have time to scrounge through.
I am aware, therefore, that I fall in the exact target demographic for a series of leftist intellectual critiques on power and narrative. If I had to critique Chu, I would say that she sometimes confuses ‘sharp� and ‘cutting� for synonyms. An ironically relevant line from her second essay, ‘Hanya’s Boys�, springs to mind: “The first time [Jude, protagonist in Yanagihara’s A Little Life] cuts himself, you are horrified; the fiftieth time, you wish he would aim.� In general, though, comments like these don’t define any of the essays� intentions; often, they are sweepingly outrageous enough to be genuinely funny (“If A Little Life was opera, it was not La Boheme; it was Rent.�)
I hope that this anthology will introduce people with perhaps more balanced reading habits than mine to see the real beauty in thoughtful, well-researched criticism. It is clear that Chu sees the beauty in the craft already.
-
I am grateful, whatever my personal views expressed, for the opportunity provided to me by NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux to read this ARC.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
April 18, 2025Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review
DNFed at 5%. This was my first exposure to Andrea Long Chu's writing, and was probably not the best way to be introduced to her work. There's no denying she's smart and a brilliant writer, with a way with words that would fit in amongst the literary greats of the 18th and 19th centuries. She is also 100% absolutely not inclined to pander to anyone with less than a university level of education and exposure to academic writing. Reading her Ivory Tower writing felt too much like work for a class that I no longer take.
I'd probably recommend this if you're a fan of her shorter-form writing, or if you have an academic interest in the art and study of criticism. However, I was not getting much enjoyment out of it, so I decided to move on.
DNFed at 5%. This was my first exposure to Andrea Long Chu's writing, and was probably not the best way to be introduced to her work. There's no denying she's smart and a brilliant writer, with a way with words that would fit in amongst the literary greats of the 18th and 19th centuries. She is also 100% absolutely not inclined to pander to anyone with less than a university level of education and exposure to academic writing. Reading her Ivory Tower writing felt too much like work for a class that I no longer take.
I'd probably recommend this if you're a fan of her shorter-form writing, or if you have an academic interest in the art and study of criticism. However, I was not getting much enjoyment out of it, so I decided to move on.
April 7, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for the ARC of this title.
I've been a big fan of Andrea Long Chu's work for New York Magazine the last few years, and this is a wonderful collection of that along with her previous work for n+1, plus a few new pieces and updates/cutting room floor bits.
The thing I like about Chu's work (even when it doesn't work for me, as with the title essay here, which applies her approach to Critics and Criticism writ large) is that you can tell she's done the work. She has read every book in your ouevre, watched every episode of your TV show, processed it, thought about it, and put her thoughts together in the most devastating way. That said, while ALC's takedowns are fun, it's even better when her thoroughness is in pursuit of something she enjoys.
I've been a big fan of Andrea Long Chu's work for New York Magazine the last few years, and this is a wonderful collection of that along with her previous work for n+1, plus a few new pieces and updates/cutting room floor bits.
The thing I like about Chu's work (even when it doesn't work for me, as with the title essay here, which applies her approach to Critics and Criticism writ large) is that you can tell she's done the work. She has read every book in your ouevre, watched every episode of your TV show, processed it, thought about it, and put her thoughts together in the most devastating way. That said, while ALC's takedowns are fun, it's even better when her thoroughness is in pursuit of something she enjoys.
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