“My Camp”
by Joshua Cohen
from the October 21, 2024 issue of The New Yorker

A few years ago Joshua Cohen won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Netanyahus. I really enjoyed it, and so I’m glad to have something new by him in this week’s New Yorker. Clearly the title is meant to evoke a notorious book, and Cohen certainly doesn’t mind pushing buttons and making folks uncomfortable. I’m not sure what to expect. This first paragraph isn’t helping:

Human nature, yes. Nature nature, no. I know nothing about it. A rose is a rose is my tradition, but then feelings lead us outside tradition, they lure us beyond it, and I feel nature deeply. I feel its lack of interest in me, its lack of humanity jibing with my inner emptiness; I like how its trees come together to make a forest that shows me how to breathe, and how its boulders show me how to concentrate. I’m content having these immature, idealizing poetic-romantic emotions about the great outdoors and don’t want to know anything more, chiefly because I’ve always regarded the outdoors as a refuge from knowledge — a haven of ignorance to feel to whenever the city news runs me down.

I’ll have to read that again to follow it better, but that’s okay! I still like it! Please share your thoughts below.

Liked it? Take a second to support The Mookse and the Gripes on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!