[HN Gopher] Zadie Smith makes 1860s London feel alive and recogn...
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       Zadie Smith makes 1860s London feel alive and recognizable
        
       Author : tintinnabula
       Score  : 47 points
       Date   : 2023-08-30 15:16 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | armeehn wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/x3s4a
        
         | Diederich wrote:
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20230831131550/https://www.nytim...
        
         | knodi123 wrote:
         | infinite loop captcha?
        
           | ycombinatornews wrote:
           | Same
        
             | rnk wrote:
             | See other discussions, supposed to be cloudflare dns. If I
             | use my tmobile phone as a hotspot I don't have that issue.
             | My normal internet is comcast, archive.is just loops at
             | captcha
        
               | Pixie_Dust wrote:
               | Zadie Smith Makes 1860s London Feel Alive, and
               | Recognizable https://justpaste.it/5sz5k
        
       | rgoulter wrote:
       | I'd think that one thing praise books for is the ability to
       | immerse yourself in other worlds, or to nurture a curious mind.
       | 
       | Here, the reviewer is praising the book for (seemingly) mapping
       | some historical trial to present day politics, which he has some
       | righteous feelings about (& doesn't indicate the book changed his
       | mind about anything).
       | 
       | I guess it's a form of escape, but doesn't really tickle my
       | curiosity all that much.
        
         | OfSanguineFire wrote:
         | Classic literature so frequently uses a setting that was
         | already archaic to its readership, to depict that readership's
         | contemporary politics. Literature isn't exclusively escapism.
         | For example, Arthur Miller's _The Crucible_ is about the 17th-
         | century Salem witch trials, but it was written to respond to
         | the McCarthy trials of 1950s America.
        
           | jhbadger wrote:
           | Similarly Lawrence & Lee's 1955 _Inherit the Wind_ which was
           | a fictionalization of the 1925 Scopes  "Monkey Trial" about a
           | teacher being on trial for teaching evolution in the Deep
           | South. Like with _The Crucible_ , it was really talking about
           | the current events of McCarthyism, as in the 1950s it was
           | assumed that everybody accepted evolution by then. Although
           | as later decades showed, creationism wasn't quite as dead as
           | belief in witchcraft.
        
       | ojbyrne wrote:
       | Weird that there is no discussion here relevant to the book or
       | the author, though perhaps that's just because the book hasn't
       | been released yet. I really enjoyed "White Teeth" so I suspect I
       | will read this too.
        
         | more_corn wrote:
         | Feel free to post the actual content that everyone is
         | complaining they cannot see. I suspect people are interested.
        
       | DrBazza wrote:
       | Whoever wrote that headline for the nytimes clearly hasn't heard
       | the quote 'The past is a foreign country; they do things
       | differently there.' I doubt it's historically accurate if it's
       | 'recognizable'.
       | 
       | Just hearing my still alive g-grandparents when I was a kid
       | talking about their youth (1880s-1910s) made me realise just how
       | different the past was. I can hardly imagine how different 1860
       | would have been.
        
         | 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
         | Wouldn't this make your Great Grand Parents between 120 and 150
         | years old (presuming the ability to talk about one's youth
         | starts age ~10)?
        
           | ike2792 wrote:
           | I think OP is saying they talked about their youth when OP
           | was a kid, not that they are still alive now.
        
       | keyle wrote:
       | I wish I could read this article or even what it is about, but I
       | first got a modal window "our privacy policy has changed" (as if
       | I care, I'm on the Internet, trying to read an article!), so I
       | dismiss it...
       | 
       | And then, half the screen, HALF(!), got covered with a white
       | panel in what looks like _" subscribe or vamos!"_, completely
       | blocking the view.
       | 
       | If you don't want to be on the Internet, fine! Just sell paper or
       | something /s. I'm sorry I'd like to support quality journalism
       | and articles but _this_ is not the way. You won 't see a dime
       | from me with those antics.
       | 
       | I actually wish HN would have a user filter for domains, so I
       | could proactively remove links to this domain from the homepage,
       | because I know it is abhorrently opposing the open web. There is
       | enough interesting quality articles already shared in the open, I
       | don't need this.
       | 
       | Sorry for the rant, I'm sure it is an interesting article, and I
       | wish this author gets paid fairly for writing it. Just... this
       | can't be the future. It's infuriating.
       | 
       | Give me a way that I can press a button on the screen after
       | reading the slug, and I make a direct transaction of 5 cents to
       | read the full article. Boom. Done. I'd do it for the stuff that
       | probe my interest, because I'll never pay 50c a week. Everyone is
       | saturated with subscriptions now.
        
         | dkdbejwi383 wrote:
         | You can try prepending the url with `archive.is/` which will
         | get around annoyance-walls in some cases. e.g.
         | https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/books/...
        
           | unknown_user_84 wrote:
           | Is archive.is/today/ph working for anyone today? Yesterday
           | .is and .today were giving me an eternal CAPTCHA but .ph
           | worked. Today .today and .ph are giving me an eternal CAPTCHA
           | while .is loads the website, but tries to redirect to .ph
           | with an eternal CAPTCHA when I click on the snapshot link.
           | 
           | Makes me think whoever runs this is trying to fix something
           | really annoying.
        
             | camgunz wrote:
             | I've found this is because my ISP uses Cloudflare DNS; when
             | I switch to mobile (on my phone or tethering) it's fine.
        
               | rnk wrote:
               | I have that problem too on my comcast home internet,
               | looping captca for archive.is. I figured it was dns
               | lookup. Is cloudflare blocking it somehow?
               | 
               | And I also noticed using my phone internet works for
               | archive.is. I want to figure out how to avoid cloudflare
               | or whatever blocking me. I need a simple dns rule I can
               | put in my router or something.
        
               | cge wrote:
               | My recollection is that it is the opposite: Cloudflare
               | and archive.is have disagreements about DNS, and as a
               | result archive.is blocks Cloudflare.
        
             | cjrp wrote:
             | I get the looping CAPTCHA in my office, but not at home.
        
         | tgv wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | ledauphin wrote:
         | i, too, wish that there were an actual way to pay per view on
         | things like this.
         | 
         | i read a lot, but i read widely, and I have absolutely no
         | desire to pay for the entirety of what tNYT is into (nor do i
         | want to deal with their dark patterns around canceling).
         | 
         | Everyone keeps telling me there's no market for this, etc etc,
         | and I suppose that must be true, but I can't help but think
         | that there must be _dozens_ of us who want a different approach
         | here...
        
           | macintux wrote:
           | I long held out hope Apple would solve the news micropayment
           | problem, but I suppose that's what Apple News+ is (give or
           | take).
        
         | tptacek wrote:
         | _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--e.g.
         | article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button
         | breakage. They're too common to be interesting._
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
           | lionkor wrote:
           | Pretty sure this doesnt apply, as its not a common issue at
           | all
        
             | tptacek wrote:
             | It definitely does; the reason we have this rule in the
             | first place is that this story about Zadie Smith is
             | absolutely dominated by an off-topic thread about website
             | presentation that nobody at the New York Times is ever
             | going to read or care about.
        
         | js2 wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37340061
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | Enabling Reader mode in Safari works for me, FWIW.
         | 
         | In fact I set the preference in Safari to _always_ enable
         | Reader mode for that domain.
        
           | oez wrote:
           | For some reason using reader mode in Chrome/Vanadium on my
           | phone only shows the preview now. If I open it in
           | Firefox/Mull which has JS disabled it shows up fine.
           | 
           | That said I've been trying to avoid NYT due to this anyway.
        
           | ycombinatornews wrote:
           | I was always curious about that. Reader mode on nytimes shows
           | only 1-2 paragraphs from the actual article and then
           | "subscribe" link.
           | 
           | How does it work for you?
        
             | drewg123 wrote:
             | In firefox at least, I see the same thing. But then if I
             | refresh the page (with reader mode still enabled), I see
             | the entire article.
        
       | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
       | Reading Zadie Smith's non-fiction makes me convinced that she has
       | one of the most first-class minds I've ever come across (in
       | writing). I can typically devour books in hours, but hers make me
       | feel my intellectual capacity for synthesis and understanding is
       | being overloaded. Too many ideas, too many connections. too much
       | goodness.
       | 
       | Obviously, YMMV (and this is a novel).
        
       | js2 wrote:
       | Gift link:
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/books/review/zadie-smith-...
        
       | Pixie_Dust wrote:
       | Her new novel, "The Fraud," is based on a celebrated 19th-century
       | criminal trial, but it keeps one eye focused clearly on today's
       | political populism.
       | 
       | Populism, that's code for the voters think the politicians work
       | in their interests. I wager that if you mentioned any subject
       | under the sun Mahajan would connect it with "Trumpism".
        
       | everybodyknows wrote:
       | Regrettably little known is that she's a superb oral dramatizer
       | of her own gently ironic social satires:
       | 
       | https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-authors-voice/zadie-sm...
       | 
       | https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-authors-voice/zadie-sm...
        
       | EwanG wrote:
       | If anyone at the Times is reading this... a case study for your
       | consideration...
       | 
       | I dropped my subscription to the NYT a bit more than a year ago
       | due to just this kind of blocking silliness. I like to be able to
       | share articles I read with others, and if I have to get an
       | archive.is/ph link anyway to do so, why should I be paying to
       | read it first myself? If the value of eyeballs on articles is
       | mainly to serve ads, and adblocking is an issue, then I'd say
       | charging a subscription to try to make up for it (which it
       | doesn't according to their own numbers) is kind of going in the
       | wrong direction.
       | 
       | I gather that the NYT itself thinks that "News" as a product is a
       | dying market and is why they are putting most of their
       | time/effort/money into building up the Games and Recipes
       | subscriptions. I wonder if that isn't a fatal case of mission
       | creep.
        
         | js2 wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37340061
        
         | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-31 23:02 UTC)