Good literary criticism from @lionel_trolling! I proclaim myself the same. I, too, read Trilling on "Mansfield Park" but never the novel. I liked "The Liberal Imagination" so much it confused me into an untenable view of liberalism for years. 1/
https://twitter.com/__seab/status/1390452949315424256
It all started in college, loving Orwell's essays - not just the one on "Politics and the English Language" everyone reads. Orwell's novels? - meh. Later, one book that had an outsized influence on my own writing, maybe thinking style, is William Empson's "Argufying". 2/
Check it at the Internet Archive (but you have to check it out.) I'll snippet the opening from the title essay. This caused me to read Donne seriously but also to think about the liminal place of argument in various genres. 3/ archive.org/details/argufy… 
For several years I had a thing about critiquing 'Theory', some of you old-hands may remember. Well, I was mostly right! (But you can't keep beating the drum of how mostly right you are forever. Looks like mostly gloating.) But one way I would put it is: 4/
'Theory' was largely Empsonian argufying. Which is not a bad thing. But institutionally hypertrophic argufying needs 'what's really going on here?' deflation. I think Empson is consistently sharp about mixing arguing and theory and 'what's really going on here' realtalk. 5/
He has a nice way of jumping in and out of his topics, brisk yet diplomatic. He taught me tricks for shifting registers in ways I regard as efficient & admirable. I have hereby rendered my own best stuff academically unpublishable due to: you are supposed to write worse, alas. 6/
Here are a few openings. He has good stuff to say about I.A. Richards, even though: who cares about I.A. Richards? Well, it's still interesting. He's always judicious on 'difficult writing' and its uses and abuses. 7/
I'll finish with bits from Empson's essay on "Orwell at the B.B.C." They worked together in the 'Liar's Club'. Fun fact: before the Battle for Britain was won in the air, maybe the army was chatting up George on the side about how to keep up the fight, Spanish style. 8/
George was kind of an asshole. This is some fuckery. One thing to appreciate about Orwell is the degree to which he was a convicted, radical egalitarian who walked the walk BUT that meant certain monsters of the British id got out when he talked the talk. 9/
Turns out scratching is older than Wikipedia thinks. (I guess this might be 'backcueing'.) Also, this note about Hitler getting royalties is great. 10/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratchin…
And these thoughts on "Animal Farm". English farming cartoon explainers. The next time some winger quotes Orwell at you, like butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, kindly tell them Orwell found it a torture to write it, because he knew their kind would put it to evil use. 11/
Other literary criticism I appreciate that no one reads anymore? Conrad Aiken is good. All this reminds me I should reread some old books, not just tweet all day. Here's the Ganz thing again. He's good. johnganz.substack.com/p/on-reading-c… 12/
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