VS 
Are you just going to sit back and let Walter Kirn talk a bunch of smack about your book, James Wood? He said your tone is one of “genteel condescension” for crying out loud!
You have to hit him back hard, James. Try something like “Naw, dogg. Your momma flashes the Burberry lining of her jacket whenever she rises from her armchair to fetch another Harvard Classic.” That ought to shut him up.
Sorry. I’m just trying to get some kind of schoolyard dust-up going. I think people would really get into literary criticism if there was more beefing between critics, and NYT vs. The New Yorker would be the literary equivalent of Jay Z vs. Nas.
-Norm De Plume
if NYT vs. New Yorker is Jay-Z vs. Nas, what does that make the best critical venue in the states, the NYRB? Tupac and Biggie combined (containing multitudes)? All the old school rappers rolled into one?
NYRB would be a very skilled and fairly well known backpack rapper who has more talent but lacks the massive circulation of those two industry giants. Mos Def, say, or nowadays possibly MF Doom.
Unfortunately, the TLS, being English, would have to be Slick Rick.
ah, foiled by circulation numbers! I can live with Mos Def.
Besides, the NYRB is way to classy to beef with any other literary publication.