Last year, a conservative book publisher released two box sets of Hardy Boys children’s mystery novels; the announcement proudly declared that the books had been “restored” to their original (often problematic) form, and declared them “the perfect introduction for reading to young people. But as Daniel Lefferts discovered when he reread both versions, there’s more to life in Bayport than what those who bemoan the “woke mind virus” might assume.
From the perspective of the far right, the Hardy brothers serve as the ideal embodiments of this fantasy: strapping young white males who are strong of body and clear of mind, resourceful and courageous and self-sufficient, willing to go to any length to protect their community from enemies who are often “dark” in appearance and of foreign extraction. They live in a perpetual summertime, never aging, never changing, never failing to restore their lives to the way they once were, before the arrival of people with strange names and sinister motives.
More picks about books and reading
This Literary AI Scandal Changes Everything
“A magazine’s response to accusations of publishing AI-generated fiction points to a new phase in the struggle to keep literature human.”
The Man Who Reads Books For a Living (One Every Two Days)
“Clarke Seicher is something much more specific and much rarer: a professional book reader who evaluates literature specifically for screen adaptation.”
The Prehistory of A.I. Slop
“Before ChatGPT, there was the Plot Robot, Auto-Beatnik, and a century’s worth of schemes for automating authorship.”
The First Tomato to Know Everything
“On gray literature and Webster’s Timeline History books.”
Do You Actually Have to Finish That Novel?
“A critic considers the strange moral pressure we feel to read to the very last page.”
Don’t Close Your Teeth
“Cynthia Zarin traces the rise of fascism through the diary entries of Virginia Woolf.”
