The ‘Have It Both Ways’ Theory of Great Books

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.This week in The Atlantic, Michael O’Donnell took aim at a film critic who is himself notorious for takedowns. Point by point, O’Donnell debunks the arguments in A Sudden Flicker of Light, David Thomson’s new book about how cinema has harmed society. O’Donnell dispenses quickly with Thomson’s idea that “movies are more prone to violence” than literature is: “If depictions of violence truly warp us, then we had better set aside not just gangster pictures but Homer, Shakespeare, Shelley, and Melville too,” he writes. But then he addresses the critic’s “most interesting point”: Movies “veer toward extremes, favoring crime and spectacle instead of stories about ‘the frequently amiable muddle.’”First, here are five stories from The Atlantic’s Books section: The surprising return of the blockbuster Trump book A twist in this year’s strangest literary AI scandal The incredible freedom of not trying to look good The “two ships” theory of American history “Dark Matter,” a poem by Maya C. Popa O’Donnell questions this dichotomy between gangster fantasy and quiet realism—why should we be forced to choose between The Godfather and The Tree of Life? He likes each of these movies, as do I. But his invocation of classic literature made me think of another category of work entirely: memorable fiction that critiques and indulges the human hunger for lust, violence, and recklessness. Great books can have it both ways.Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes’s 17th-century epic about a deluded knight, is frequently called the first modern novel. A satire of the fantasy genre of chivalric romances, it became a best seller not only for its pratfalls and biting wit, but also for set pieces full of action, danger, and passion. You could say something similar about Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which some critics consider the best novel of them all; its tragic housewife keeps chasing l