Reviewer Reviewed

Recently Tom McCarthy reviewed both David Foster Wallace's Pale King and the collection of essays on fatalism and free will in which a Wallace essay appears. Today the Times printed two letters. The first, respectfully, calls McCarthy an ignoramus on the cogency of the debate on fatalism and free will. The second, for the fatalism and free text's editor, points out, much less respectfully, that McCarthy was wrong about the publications content, history, and purpose and that he knows nothing about the philosophic roots of fatalism versus free will. McCarthy, understandably enought -- why make himself look worse, doesn't respond. Both letters, but the second in particular, raise the question of editors and fact checkers at the NYTRB do. It is, I suppose, to much to ask that they understand the philosophical aspect of the two books but surely McCarthy's claim that fatalism and free will was only Wallace's text could be checked with the Google.

Also, Shirley McClain's I Over All That, in which she discusses, among other things, her "past lives" inclusion on the nonfiction list is further evidence, should it be needed, that the NYT is losing interest in words and their meaning.