Now that the New York Times s red-headed stepchild, the Arts & Ideas section, has died, what are the editors to do with all those upper-level think pieces that aren t quite appropriate for the Arts & Leisure section, the Magazine, the Week in Review, or Eating Out? Why, just plop them in the jack-of-all-trades that is the New York Times' Book Review of course! This week s NYTBR was heavy on the random essays that vaguely had something to do with literature, and light on the book reviews. After the jump, Intern Alexis wonders what it all means.

Letters

Reader Sonia Jaffe Robbins claims that she almost threw out the Poetry issue along with all the advertising supplements that its cover so closely resembles. She goes on to politely but firmly advise the editors: Please don t ever have a cover that looks like that again. Right-o!

Essay: Keep Talking by Laura Miller

We re so confused. Do we or do we not care about Jorge Luis Borges s life? According to Laura Miller and her essay on Paris Review author interviews, we do. On an interview between a PR reporter and Borges, Miller writes: There s relatively little talk about Borges s enigmatic writings here, but a far richer sense of Borges himself. That s what makes this interview a document to cherish. Let writers say what they will about the work being all that matters; once the work does matter, as it does so mightily to so many of us, it makes the man or woman who wrote it matter, too.

But according to David Foster Wallace, who several weeks back, hated on Edwin Williamson s Borges bio, we should not care about Borges s life. He writes that: It is in these claims about personal stuff encoded in the writer s art that the book s real defect lies. He goes on to refute the standard claim that we can t correctly interpret a piece of verbal art unless we know the personal and/or psychological circumstances surrounding its creation.

Hmm how about we settle this with a Jell-O match? DFW vs. Laura Miller. Deconstructionist vs. New Historicist. Or whatever.

Just as we were getting over this Borges conundrum, our head started spinning yet again. A few weeks ago, the Times (and Jonathan Franzen) told us we loved short stories, especially ones by Alice Munro, so we went out and got ourselves a copy of Runaway. But then, last week, the New York Times told us that we hated short stories. So we burned Runaway. Now, this week, we re told we love them again. Which one is it, NYT? Don't play us with your academic rigmarole.

Essay: An Art Like Everything Else by Erica Jong

Jong s essay about Sylvia Plath and her daughter Frieda Hughes s edition of Ariel, is actually rather interesting. Particularly intriguing is her theory about poetry in the 60 s (not to be confused with The Sixties ) Poetry was a mandrake root male, a large gnarled phallus buried in the earth. Pull it out. Its virility was unmistakable. Hmm, Erica Jong, where can we get some of that mandrake root you ve been smoking? And, as per your request, Erica, how about, um, YOU pull it out. No, wait, actually keep it in your pants.

Letter from Paris: Writers in Paradise by Christina Nehring

Christina Nehring went to Paris and all she brought back for us was this lousy essay. In sum: The French write a lot of books. Most of these books are shit. But in the end, Paris still stands for hope. Um, next time, please stick to a t-shirt.