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Kafkaesque Toilet Paper, and Other News
By
Sadie Stein
August 15, 2013
On the Shelf
Kafka cameos
in a Charmin toilet paper commercial; one of those incontinent bears is a fan, apparently.
“But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the Führer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.” In a 1944 letter,
George Orwell
explains his reasons for writing
1984
.
The
literally
question
is, in fact, more complicated than it seems; its misuse (this is known as a
contronym
) has been
going on for centuries
.
Pioneering Swedish crime writer
Maj Sjöwall
says contemporary Scandinavian thrillers are are “not about police work and crime, but very much about love and relationships—like girls’ books.”
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