Nom de Plume

It used to be that you closed the cover on an issue of the New Yorker and felt like you just got a mini liberal arts education. There was some science, some sociology, some law, some literature–all dosed with a goodly amount of philosophy and analysis in long, thoughtful, well-written articles.

I stopped taking it a few years ago because I was bored, bored, bored; I hated the themed issues (especially the advertisement-stuffed fashion one), I was tired of the fact that all their articles were about Iraq; and their articles had somehow lost their sprightly analysis. I didn’t miss it. But in the past year, I got one of those 1 year for $25 deals, and so resubscribed.

What a disappointment.

Is it just me? Am I imagining this? Because I want to like the articles I find–I really do. But really, they just put me to sleep. They’re boring. If the topics aren’t boring (which most of the time they are), the way it’s put together is boring. Any real analysis is missing. And the writing-oh my god, the writing. It’s almost as though someone has written a “Write like a New Yorker essayist from days of yore” software program and everything gets churned through it. Except that the long, dense reporting that used to illuminate has turned into run-on sentences one has to read mutiple times to understand.

So I’m curious–is it just me? Because when push comes to shove, I think the New Yorker hasn’t just gotten worse, it’s gotten downright bad.

I need to renew my subscription to the Atlantic.