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February 7, 2025
This slight, meditative essay from Barnes (Elizabeth Finch, 2022), one of the most celebrated writers currently working, considers the difficulty of changing one's mind. In particular, he first discusses memories and changing one's mind more broadly. He then looks at the changing meaning of words, with a David Foster Wallace-like discussion of prescriptivist versus descriptivist grammar, shared via a fascinating anecdote of his time working for the Oxford English Dictionary. He offers an unusual take on British politics, in which he posits that his stable political views have possibly led British political parties to shift around him, which is why his voting record is so inconsistent, a curious suggestion he immediately reconsiders. Then, in a Barthes-like musing, he advocates for the value of rereading books later in life. Finally, he considers age and time, and how these shift as memories are formed, forgotten, and retrieved. Barnes is always a compelling essayist, steering clear of polemical thinking to carefully consider all angles of a topic, and the range of his references, from Dadaists to John Maynard Keynes, constantly astounds.
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