3 ms·
This article seems particularly bad (I stopped reading halfway through), but a lot of articles published in The New Yorker seems to do this kind of meandering.
by vilhelm_s 12y ago
This article seems particularly bad (I stopped reading halfway through), but a lot of articles published in The New Yorker seems to do this kind of meandering. The other day I was reading a story about Jake Leg[0], and if you compare it to the corresponding Wikipedia article[1] the difference is really striking---the Wikipedia article tells you straight away what caused the contamination, while the New Yorker story somehow tries to keep you in suspense.
I guess I just don't see what these authors are trying to do. If someone started reading an article about "no, yes", probably they want to know about "no, yes". Why intersperse a bunch of unrelated fluff?
[0] http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Articles_files/Jake%20Leg,%20New%20Yorker.pdf http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Articles_files/Jake%20Leg,...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_ginger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_ginger
- fapjacks 12y agoAgreed. I just move along when I see an article trying to play a story out like a movie.
- Tenhundfeld 12y agoI respectfully disagree. I thought this "no, totally" article was entertaining and enjoyable. It's strange to me that you're comparing The New Yorker and Wikipedia. One publishes stories. The other publishes reference articles. I appreciate suspense in a story; I appreciate a quick summary of the facts in a reference article. They are very different forms of writing.