True Nature: The Lives of Peter Matthiessen

ggm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole"," is Evelyn Waugh's take on the gentleman naturalist in "Scoop" (1938) a role which Peter Matthiessen seems to have taken to heart.

It's a job. Somebody has to note the first cookoo of spring.

▲

irishcoffee 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Eventually this... whatever it is, almost gets somewhere.

TL;DR: the CIA recruited people in the 1950s.

▲

pkkim 2 hours ago | parent [-]

London Review of Books articles aren't allowed to discuss the book being reviewed for the first five paragraphs. It's an obscure British law or something.

	▲	irishcoffee 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Apparently it isn’t a rule as much as an implied norm. I didn’t know this, thank you for educating me. Explains a lot about the article. I’ve always been fascinated with how governments operate their clandestine operations. This particular article felt more like an expositional adventure than informative.