Excellent essay, thanks for sharing. Several Lapham essays have made their way to HN over the years, which I am grateful for. I don't think I had ever come across a writer with such consistently interesting ideas and so strong a voice. And it seems that he remained curious and playful until the end:
> For Lewis, the greatest game was running a magazine. He played with words and ideas like a beautiful set of hand-hewn stone blocks. He loved the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens, about the formative role of play in human culture, its five defining characteristics: “1. Play is free, is in fact freedom. 2. Play is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. 3. Play is distinct from ‘ordinary’ life both as to locality and duration. 4. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme. 5. Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it.” Lewis discovered and disseminated a way of life and work that was essentially play. So I guess, in the end, he tossed rules 2 and 3 into the trash.
If you enjoyed TFA, the obit from Lapham's Quarterly [0] is similar in tone and also well worth reading.
What a wonderful, touching essay. Lewis Lapham was one of the best stylists in American letters in the last century. If I could write like him, or even close to it, I'd feel like a God. I subscribed to Harpers a long time ago just to read his pieces. What a magazine! I'm just glad to know that as good as he was as a writer and editor, he was also a good, funny, generous and interesting human being.
I’m not the target audience for lithub.com and have heard of, but never read, Lapham’s Quarterly. However, this was a great read. The writing is top-notch, but what else would you expect from a mentee of the editor of Harper’s magazine?
Excellent essay, thanks for sharing. Several Lapham essays have made their way to HN over the years, which I am grateful for. I don't think I had ever come across a writer with such consistently interesting ideas and so strong a voice. And it seems that he remained curious and playful until the end:
> For Lewis, the greatest game was running a magazine. He played with words and ideas like a beautiful set of hand-hewn stone blocks. He loved the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens, about the formative role of play in human culture, its five defining characteristics: “1. Play is free, is in fact freedom. 2. Play is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. 3. Play is distinct from ‘ordinary’ life both as to locality and duration. 4. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme. 5. Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it.” Lewis discovered and disseminated a way of life and work that was essentially play. So I guess, in the end, he tossed rules 2 and 3 into the trash.
If you enjoyed TFA, the obit from Lapham's Quarterly [0] is similar in tone and also well worth reading.
0: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/lewis-h-lapham-1...
What a wonderful, touching essay. Lewis Lapham was one of the best stylists in American letters in the last century. If I could write like him, or even close to it, I'd feel like a God. I subscribed to Harpers a long time ago just to read his pieces. What a magazine! I'm just glad to know that as good as he was as a writer and editor, he was also a good, funny, generous and interesting human being.
I’m not the target audience for lithub.com and have heard of, but never read, Lapham’s Quarterly. However, this was a great read. The writing is top-notch, but what else would you expect from a mentee of the editor of Harper’s magazine?