cindy-sherman-bus-riders

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/elenic-question/"></div><p>The revelation of Elena Ferrante’s real identity — she is, allegedly, the Italian translator Anita Raja — by the Italian investigative reporter Claudio Gatti has provoked outrage and dismay from journalists and literary critics. Many feel that Gatti’s violation of Raja’s pseudonymity is an unethical attack on her privacy. We agree. Whatever Raja’s reasons for desiring to remain pseudonymous, her wishes should have been respected, at least during her lifetime. The “exposure” of Raja as Ferrante did not serve the sort of compelling public interests that might have justified the invasion of her privacy. <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/elenic-question/#more-2309" class="more-link">Read more</a></p>
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The Elenic Question

Exquisite Masochism

<h4>Len Gutkin is a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. He has written for <em>TLS</em>, <em>Boston Review</em>, and elsewhere.</h4>

Len Gutkin

Masochism’s Gem-Like Flames

"Writing only leads to more writing." — Colette

Literary Criticism

Matthew Barney’s “Excrementitious” Transcendentalism: On “River of Fundament”

"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers

Film

Babies Taste Best

Camp Von Trier: On "Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1"

A Beatnik Animal House: John Krokidas’s “Kill Your Darlings”

The Letters of William Gaddis

The Last Obscenity: William Gaddis’s Collected Correspondence

The Stupidity of Mankind, Its Misuse of Reason: An Interview with William H. Gass

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

Fiction

The Cocktail Waitress

The Terrifying Wish that Comes True: On Cain's 'The Cocktail Waitress'

Len Gutkin is a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. He has written for <em>TLS</em>, <em>Boston Review</em>, and elsewhere.