“The birth of the reader must be at the expense of the death of the author.” So announced the French literary critic Roland Barthes in 1967, indicating what he assumed was the total irrelevance of authorial identity to the appreciation …
Why Harry couldn’t be a hero
Prince Harry has finally taken up the role he was always destined to fill. If Diana was, as Tony Blair dubbed her, the Princess of Hearts, Harry is her true heir: the Prince of Lolcows.
A “lolcow”, for those who …
Prince Harry’s Faustian bargain
One of the characteristics of fame is that it is essentially Faustian in nature; to become a celebrity, one must sell one’s soul to the devil. It’s a highly questionable idea — why should there be such a price for …