5.7.13

Today in "I Can't Believe Someone Wrote This"

The Toast:

"The journalist Rob Sheffield recently wrote... “your Beatles will change all through your life,” which is so correct and brilliant that I think it could replace all organized religion."

I realize this is the internet and therefore all thoughts must be agreed with or excoriated in the most hyperbolic of terms. But, one, this is a common enough thought in aesthetic criticism to qualify as banal--one's attitude towards Dante, or Shakespeare, or Dostoevsky, or Van Gogh, et al, will change over time. Anyone who can qualify as great will have this feature, since it's one of the preconditions of greatness.

Two, more importantly, the last person to agree with this sentiment would be the uber-Catholic Sheffield himself. The author doesn't actually mean what she's saying (it would reflect poorly on her if she did), but it's so odd and tonally wrong as to be worth comment.

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