Came here to write this comment. If not meant to diminish his abuse, like, is it meant to diminish the value of the texts he’s read? I want to believe this article is written in good faith because I think The Drift is one of the best of the current little magazines, but at my most sympathetic, all I can see is a point about how reading particular sorts of books doesn’t really make one a particular kind of person. But this begs the question—does anyone out of college still believe that reading particular kinds of books over others makes one a particular kind of person? Were college students the target audience of this piece?
Mostly I think that this piece was neither on his reading nor on what he used reading to signal about himself—it just seems like a list of the books mentioned in the files, which doesn’t even have to indicate he actually read them.
I don't really understand these complaints. It's near-universally acknowledged that Jeffrey Epstein is a bad man who did bad things and caused immense harm; I feel like that doesn't need to be reiterated here. The piece is just about the books that he read or pretended to read and the purposes this may have served him, whether it was a purely cynical use of cultural signifiers or some kind of earnest dilettantish enjoyment which helped to flatter his ego. It doesn't comment on his crimes because that's not the subject; that is something that has been treated abundantly elsewhere. I don't know what you want from the author here.
But it's not just a list! There's commentary in there, if you read it. More would be good, I agree. In any case that's not the part I was objecting to: it's the suggestion that the author is somehow minimizing Epstein's crimes (which is in your comment and the one above it) that I find baseless.
I don't know that it's entirely baseless, but I see your point. I think for me this piece appeared to comment in some capacity on the person he was, through the books, in a way that may be unfair to the books mentioned depending on the analysis offered of the books. I did not think that there was no commentary in the piece--it's that I found it thin.
To be clear: I don't think the piece was intended to diminish the abuse. I think the way it presented his relation to the books diminished the value of the books mentioned, and I found that kind of disappointing. I said that if it's not some commentary on the abuse, it seems like it is a commentary on the books themselves.
I think the piece is neither meant to be a commentary on the abuse nor on the books themselves. I think it's just showing how Epstein used literary references to inflate his ego and as a kind of cultural currency among his elite friend groups. If anything this article presents a rather unflattering picture of him as performative and pretentious.
Because he's known as a monster and that loomed so large, the catalogue of potential reading materials is not a separate topic at all, it depends on the shock value of the purported reader to be at all interesting. So it isn't minimizing the crimes, true, but it's ironizing them in order to continue the fetish of his crime. That's the only reason anyone would want to read about these books -- they were found in the e-mails.
Seems it cd rather make the thing more real. Instead of the overwhelm of the common, by which I mean not common in life entire but the 'usual' in these events, which we've all so many times seen, this short item shows [again for it is always there] Epstein's weakness at the core of his cruelty — that he was ragged and craven and small.
Then precisely to a specific point: that the arts done badly will have the wrong results — the natural one for being done that way by those who do things that way. Seeing Nazis loving opera does indeed humanize — but not 'oh then they're OK'. We can go from there rather to the crimes being worse *because* committed by a person.
Epstein was monstrous. But if he's just a monster, we'll respond in mimetic civic duty, wear a colored ribbon, categorize it with all the others, and file it away.
The article only makes sense in light of the obscenity. Who would care what he read if they didn't come to this piece believing (correctly) that he was a monster?
There's a bit in here about that adage, that there is a moral uplift that one is supposed to enjoy as a reader of literary material. It's supposed to be edifying and ameliorating. I've always found it a despicable sort of liberal observation, and it characterizes this essay. If we've learned anything since the start of the genocide in October 2023 (not really the start but anyway) perpetrated by the entity for whom Epstein claimed to work, it's that liberalism is the fastest route to fascism, and this sort of essay is akin to the coverage of George W. Bush's painting hobby and Hitler's tastes in art and years at art school. Stop aestheticizing everything. You aren't as clever as you think you are.
I wonder what tv shows he watched or painters he preferred or music he listened to or designers he patronized or architects he admired, etc etc. etc. …. Why? WTF?
Yes, are we supposed think this essay is entertaining? What is the point of this essay? Titillation? It's not only a waste of time, it's stupid. I thought The Drift was supposed to be a smart magazine.
I generally don’t want to post negative things about pieces on Substack, but this essay is not very good. It seems to make the case that prestige literature played some role in Epstein’s success, but there is very little out there to suggest Epstein was anything but semi-literate. His writing skills, for one, are awful. He seems to like works that superficially suggested the superiority of people like himself (Lolita), but it is very clear that Epstein was not much of a reader. Sure, I’m not surprised that he would drop a Proust reference here and there to the Rothschilds—pretending to be well-read was likely similar to faking an interest in opera or the fine arts in these circles—but Epstein was a finance guy, a high school dropout, and his tastes were extremely middle-brow. He was not at all articulate, and his interviews with Bannon (even on the subject of finance) evidence a pretty dimwitted guy: he excelled at sex trafficking, he wasn’t Bruce fucking Chatwin. Finally, the author missed a good example of his taste in literature: in one photo, he’s holding a Signet Classics copy of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a very good book, only a hundred pages, and one that probably fed his stupid-guy notion that the rest of the world only exists for The Chosen Ones to feed their disgusting appetites.
Epstein recommended The Haj? That should get as much attention as if he'd recommended The Turner Diaries or The Camp of the Saints. They're equally hateful.
As others ingratiated with him, he did the same with those he wanted to be near.
['we seek the praise of the praised,' to emend Tim Keller slightly]
+
This —
'Much has been said about literature’s capacity to improve our moral sensibilities, but Epstein seems to point, on the contrary, to literature’s ability to corrupt us or justify our corruption.'
Recently read in Gary Saul Morson's *Wonder Meets Certainty*, in a chapter on the Russian life of literature this, which must be heard other than we might want, as Plur1bus reminds —
'If you read a lot, then in your memory you will already have the answers, how to conduct yourself and what to do. Literature will tell you.'
Actually he was quite a bit busier than that, TK, and we're all getting sidetracked from the fact that a functional illiterate sociopath (he can rage-post on social media but has to struggle with the instructions on a bag of cheetos) who was best buds with Epstein is now sitting in the Oval office. The phenomenon of highly placed men (and women, but they're better at hiding their freak shows) who have cultured hobbies and tastes is an old one- do a little research on some of the Borgia Popes who commissioned that magnificent Vatican artwork. (And for the record, I've never thought James Joyce was anything but a lot of drunken gibberish) Epstein was a compulsive networked who cultivated pretty much everyone on the radar-as far as the special friends who got invited to the chicken hawk parties, Individual One's got some pretty fast tap dancing to do to dodge all the flying
tar-we'll see how all this plays out in thevmidterms....
I don’t give a fuck about the files. Start prosecuting and throwing people in jail for crimes that have actual evidence, releasing emails is useless. The hysteria going on about the supposed satanic rituals and cannibalism and trafficking hundreds children doesn’t help ANYONE. I don’t care if Trump is a pervert (he obviously is), I care if he committed actual crimes.
Satanic rituals, etc.and trafficking hundreds of children is stuff Russian-based influenncers accused Hillary of in Trump's first go-round- I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've dusted it off again, but the actual news isn't featuring it. As for Trumps' actual ( provable ) crimes? Take a number and stand in line...
I think this is a very strange article to publish and somehow feels like it is diminishing all of the obscenity and abuse he has inflicted.
Came here to write this comment. If not meant to diminish his abuse, like, is it meant to diminish the value of the texts he’s read? I want to believe this article is written in good faith because I think The Drift is one of the best of the current little magazines, but at my most sympathetic, all I can see is a point about how reading particular sorts of books doesn’t really make one a particular kind of person. But this begs the question—does anyone out of college still believe that reading particular kinds of books over others makes one a particular kind of person? Were college students the target audience of this piece?
Mostly I think that this piece was neither on his reading nor on what he used reading to signal about himself—it just seems like a list of the books mentioned in the files, which doesn’t even have to indicate he actually read them.
I don't really understand these complaints. It's near-universally acknowledged that Jeffrey Epstein is a bad man who did bad things and caused immense harm; I feel like that doesn't need to be reiterated here. The piece is just about the books that he read or pretended to read and the purposes this may have served him, whether it was a purely cynical use of cultural signifiers or some kind of earnest dilettantish enjoyment which helped to flatter his ego. It doesn't comment on his crimes because that's not the subject; that is something that has been treated abundantly elsewhere. I don't know what you want from the author here.
I think I made what I wanted reasonably clear: more analysis than "a list of the books mentioned in the files." Sorry about the miscommunication!
But it's not just a list! There's commentary in there, if you read it. More would be good, I agree. In any case that's not the part I was objecting to: it's the suggestion that the author is somehow minimizing Epstein's crimes (which is in your comment and the one above it) that I find baseless.
I don't know that it's entirely baseless, but I see your point. I think for me this piece appeared to comment in some capacity on the person he was, through the books, in a way that may be unfair to the books mentioned depending on the analysis offered of the books. I did not think that there was no commentary in the piece--it's that I found it thin.
To be clear: I don't think the piece was intended to diminish the abuse. I think the way it presented his relation to the books diminished the value of the books mentioned, and I found that kind of disappointing. I said that if it's not some commentary on the abuse, it seems like it is a commentary on the books themselves.
I think the piece is neither meant to be a commentary on the abuse nor on the books themselves. I think it's just showing how Epstein used literary references to inflate his ego and as a kind of cultural currency among his elite friend groups. If anything this article presents a rather unflattering picture of him as performative and pretentious.
Because he's known as a monster and that loomed so large, the catalogue of potential reading materials is not a separate topic at all, it depends on the shock value of the purported reader to be at all interesting. So it isn't minimizing the crimes, true, but it's ironizing them in order to continue the fetish of his crime. That's the only reason anyone would want to read about these books -- they were found in the e-mails.
Maybe it ought to be taken as cautionary, at least in the sense that as bibliophiles are wont to allude, that literature does one good.
Seems it cd rather make the thing more real. Instead of the overwhelm of the common, by which I mean not common in life entire but the 'usual' in these events, which we've all so many times seen, this short item shows [again for it is always there] Epstein's weakness at the core of his cruelty — that he was ragged and craven and small.
Then precisely to a specific point: that the arts done badly will have the wrong results — the natural one for being done that way by those who do things that way. Seeing Nazis loving opera does indeed humanize — but not 'oh then they're OK'. We can go from there rather to the crimes being worse *because* committed by a person.
Epstein was monstrous. But if he's just a monster, we'll respond in mimetic civic duty, wear a colored ribbon, categorize it with all the others, and file it away.
Who even says 'Harvey Weinstein' anymore.
The article only makes sense in light of the obscenity. Who would care what he read if they didn't come to this piece believing (correctly) that he was a monster?
There's a bit in here about that adage, that there is a moral uplift that one is supposed to enjoy as a reader of literary material. It's supposed to be edifying and ameliorating. I've always found it a despicable sort of liberal observation, and it characterizes this essay. If we've learned anything since the start of the genocide in October 2023 (not really the start but anyway) perpetrated by the entity for whom Epstein claimed to work, it's that liberalism is the fastest route to fascism, and this sort of essay is akin to the coverage of George W. Bush's painting hobby and Hitler's tastes in art and years at art school. Stop aestheticizing everything. You aren't as clever as you think you are.
I wonder what tv shows he watched or painters he preferred or music he listened to or designers he patronized or architects he admired, etc etc. etc. …. Why? WTF?
THIS!! And not one mention of the victims. The last sentence really set off a nerve, this is not some literary figure. This is a real life monster.
Yes, are we supposed think this essay is entertaining? What is the point of this essay? Titillation? It's not only a waste of time, it's stupid. I thought The Drift was supposed to be a smart magazine.
I generally don’t want to post negative things about pieces on Substack, but this essay is not very good. It seems to make the case that prestige literature played some role in Epstein’s success, but there is very little out there to suggest Epstein was anything but semi-literate. His writing skills, for one, are awful. He seems to like works that superficially suggested the superiority of people like himself (Lolita), but it is very clear that Epstein was not much of a reader. Sure, I’m not surprised that he would drop a Proust reference here and there to the Rothschilds—pretending to be well-read was likely similar to faking an interest in opera or the fine arts in these circles—but Epstein was a finance guy, a high school dropout, and his tastes were extremely middle-brow. He was not at all articulate, and his interviews with Bannon (even on the subject of finance) evidence a pretty dimwitted guy: he excelled at sex trafficking, he wasn’t Bruce fucking Chatwin. Finally, the author missed a good example of his taste in literature: in one photo, he’s holding a Signet Classics copy of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a very good book, only a hundred pages, and one that probably fed his stupid-guy notion that the rest of the world only exists for The Chosen Ones to feed their disgusting appetites.
Epstein recommended The Haj? That should get as much attention as if he'd recommended The Turner Diaries or The Camp of the Saints. They're equally hateful.
A diabolical man with a truly crap taste in reading. Quelle surprise.
As others ingratiated with him, he did the same with those he wanted to be near.
['we seek the praise of the praised,' to emend Tim Keller slightly]
+
This —
'Much has been said about literature’s capacity to improve our moral sensibilities, but Epstein seems to point, on the contrary, to literature’s ability to corrupt us or justify our corruption.'
Recently read in Gary Saul Morson's *Wonder Meets Certainty*, in a chapter on the Russian life of literature this, which must be heard other than we might want, as Plur1bus reminds —
'If you read a lot, then in your memory you will already have the answers, how to conduct yourself and what to do. Literature will tell you.'
The speaker is Stalin.
Thought-provoking
Epstine had sex with one 17 year old. The moral panic going on is insane.
Actually he was quite a bit busier than that, TK, and we're all getting sidetracked from the fact that a functional illiterate sociopath (he can rage-post on social media but has to struggle with the instructions on a bag of cheetos) who was best buds with Epstein is now sitting in the Oval office. The phenomenon of highly placed men (and women, but they're better at hiding their freak shows) who have cultured hobbies and tastes is an old one- do a little research on some of the Borgia Popes who commissioned that magnificent Vatican artwork. (And for the record, I've never thought James Joyce was anything but a lot of drunken gibberish) Epstein was a compulsive networked who cultivated pretty much everyone on the radar-as far as the special friends who got invited to the chicken hawk parties, Individual One's got some pretty fast tap dancing to do to dodge all the flying
tar-we'll see how all this plays out in thevmidterms....
I don’t give a fuck about the files. Start prosecuting and throwing people in jail for crimes that have actual evidence, releasing emails is useless. The hysteria going on about the supposed satanic rituals and cannibalism and trafficking hundreds children doesn’t help ANYONE. I don’t care if Trump is a pervert (he obviously is), I care if he committed actual crimes.
Satanic rituals, etc.and trafficking hundreds of children is stuff Russian-based influenncers accused Hillary of in Trump's first go-round- I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've dusted it off again, but the actual news isn't featuring it. As for Trumps' actual ( provable ) crimes? Take a number and stand in line...
Supposed to be "cannibalism"-edit button doesn't apparently work-