On Sun, 3 Oct 2010, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> Gladwell writes well, and the article you referenced is definitely one
> of his better efforts, but it still feels like he's stopping short of
> finishing the work.
That's the hallmark of an old style essayist. It's a virtue in an essay.
It's also why his books (the ones he's famous for) stink. He has no capacity for the longer form, so even in short books his practical solutions to that problem end up foregrounding his most gimmicky transitions.
But writes lots of good essays, which is what his New Yorker fans like him for. In the short form, those transitions are just extra efforts to make the reading more pleasurable, and make you want to toss the ideas around more afterwards -- again, the goals of a classic essay. He's perfectly suited to that magazine.
Michael