This piece originally appeared in the Notes and Comment section of the July 3, 1943, issue of The New Yorker. “The 40s: The Story of a Decade,” an anthology of New Yorker articles, stories, and poems, will be released on Tuesday.
More:The 40s
Books & Fiction
Short stories and poems, plus author interviews, profiles, and tales from the world of literature.
Comma Queen
A Musical for—and About—Grammar Sticklers
“The Angry Grammarian” asks whether two lovebirds can overcome differing opinions on the Oxford comma.
By Mary Norris
Poems
“Late Shift”
“Years later I will / Still feel most at home when I eat standing up.”
By Amy Woolard
Critics at Large
The New Coming-of-Age Story
Vinson Cunningham discusses his début novel, “Great Expectations,” a bildungsroman that captures a particular moment in American life—and that offers some clues about where the genre is heading.
Poems
“Edward Hopper (Yellow and Red)”
“The windows inflect an ethic of the watched, / the overseen, the secretive.”
By W. S. Di Piero