Melville House Books

The Los Angeles Times may be the only newspaper in America that has now allowed a critic to use the full title Harry Franfurt‘s On Bullshit. “I have received special dispensation,” says Dan Neil in his commentary, but he nonetheless develops a tactic to avoid having to over use the word. “I will mark many sentences where the reader may infer the word or concept with an asterisk,” he explains . . . before going on and seeming to ask what all the fuss is about: “Much of this, while fascinating*, seems a prolix path around the more important point that Frankfurt himself directs us toward in the first paragraph: We are drowning in bullshit. I mean, the Bush administration has practically made it a Cabinet position.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.