People will despise me for it but I’ll just come out and say it. What saved my writing from being a pompous Germanic mess was the good old Strunk and White. It’s fashionable to hate on Strunk and White but I read that tiny volume twice and now I’m the author of the very moderately Germanic posts you all enjoy.

Strunk and White give examples of sentences, and for every single one I’d exclaim, “Yes! That sounds beautiful!” And then Strunk and White would explain why it’s a horrid, ugly sentence.

Just to give an example (which Strunk and White would tell me to reduce to “Example:” but then nobody is perfect):

I was totally the “he is a man who” (or even worse, “I’m a person who”) type of writer. But I’m mostly cured. OK, partially cured.

Strunk and White have become less popular because their rules hurt the feelings of the wordy. Or the grammatically challenged. But they are great.

To practice, I recommend writing a 500-word piece on any subject. The last movie you watched, your favorite podcast. And then try to edit it down for maximum clarity.

Another great exercise is to summarize in one sentence an episode of a TV series or a book you read. Write the sentence in Word and see what the grammar check flags as possible problems. Do that at least once daily.

In short, clarity, brevity, and a lot of practice.

I’m being interviewed for a Ukrainian magazine about my book. The interviewer sent a list of questions and I’m trying to answer them. And God, it’s hard. I’ve lucked out with an interviewer who is a writer published in two dozen languages and a very profound person. She read the book carefully and probably twice, judging by the depth of the understanding of what I say in it. So the questions aren’t the problem. I am.

I discovered that I don’t have a voice in Ukrainian. I developed as a person and an intellectual in English-speaking countries. When I try to answer questions in Ukrainian, I revert to who I was at 22 when I left. And I wasn’t anything special back then. I was very immature and not deeply interesting. In the book, I mostly managed to avoid sounding like a kid, especially in the parts about the nation-state and neoliberalism. But when I talk to an actual person, even in writing, I revert to childishness, and it feels weird.

I’ll probably also have another interview in person, and I need to figure this out before I scare people off with this personal drama.

It’s always the same. The largest war in Europe since WW2 is still not a war because it’s inconvenient to say the truth. It’s also really cute how Russia, the aggressor, is completely erased from this “Ukraine crisis.”

These are the same tricks we see in the coverage of domestic issues.

They are all really against borders, eh? As true in the US as it is in Russia.

Because it’s a model nation-state that cares about the well-being of its population. Many places in the world never became mature nation-states, so they don’t bother to punish crimes. Many others did achieve it but then started dismantling their nation-state institutions and letting criminals out with minimum sentences or refusing to incarcerate altogether.

If all countries took its obligations to its citizens as seriously as the US, we’d see comparable and higher incarceration rates everywhere.

The resistance you feel towards the positive description of the US I’m giving in this post was implanted into you with the specific purpose of dismantling these nation-state protections that the US possesses.

Leftists don’t know how human beings work. Everything about human biology and psychology either confuses or upsets them.

Conservatives have no idea how organizations work.

See, for example, this article that goes on and on about DEI statements in academic hiring. I obviously detest DEI statements. They are coerced political speech. They are humiliating and degrade our human dignity. But they have zero impact on anything. Nobody reads them.

Everybody is busy. These hiring portfolios are large. It’s rare that I would read anything beyond the CV. Only if the CV has holes in it and raises questions, might I look at the cover letter. The likelihood that I’ll look at anything beyond the CV is low.

The CV is everything in academia. It tells the whole story. Our CVs go on and on, and you have to be one of us to make them speak to you.

I deeply dislike hiring. I thought it would be a great part of my job but actually it’s one of the worst. Why would I make it even more time-consuming and annoying by reading stock statements that are, in all likelihood, written by a chatbot? Nobody seeks additional bureaucratic drudgery in the workplace.

Of course, it’s possible that both Left and Right fake their ignorance but it’s a dumb game no matter who plays it.

I Refuse is a 2012 novel by a Norwegian writer, and it’s extraordinary. It’s like Madelaine Lucas’s Thirst for Salt but in its male version.

Petterson’s book is about masculinity. It’s about two 53-year-old men who were friends in childhood figuring out where life brought them and whether it’s too late to change things.

It’s just so good, people. Really good. You have male friendship, fatherhood, loneliness, falling in love when you are past 50, fishing at night next to other silent men. It’s the most male thing I have read in a while, and it’s not very easy to comprehend because I’m not a man but, God, it’s good.

Received from the local dry cleaners:

There are cultures where this kind of thing is impossible because people have a sense of humor.

It’s -22°C here right now. I looked it up and it’s -7°F. I did not think I’d reach this pinnacle of joy in this geographic area, so I’m happy.

Speaking of happy, students are greatly enjoying my course in interpretation (translation with an oral component). Translation speaks to something profound in human beings. One reason is that it takes people into the “zone” faster than most anything else. Achieving deep focus through translation is easy. And what people often forget is that deep focus is a high. It’s very pleasant.

There’s an author called John Katzenbach. He wrote Hart’s Law and several other bestselling thrillers. This is a very well-known writer who’s been translated into many languages.

One of his most famous novels is The Analyst. It’s about a psychoanalyst called Ricky Starks who finds himself a target of a ruinous conspiracy. It’s really good. I highly recommend to people who like psychological thrillers. An excellent novel.

But here’s the mystery part. In 2018, the sequel to The Analyst was released. And in a few weeks, installment #3 in the series is coming out. But get this. The Analyst 2 and 3 are only available in Spanish (and some people say German.) Katzenbach is an American novelist but The Analyst 2 that’s been selling up a storm in Latin America for 5 years doesn’t exist in English.

Does anybody understand how this is possible?