Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Weekend reading on nybooks.com: The novels of Elena Ferrante, how Goya confronted violence and chaos, deadlock in Washington, Edward Snowden’s action, and a Thanksgiving for crooks. SPONSORED BY THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Italy’s Great, Mysterious Storyteller Rachel Donadio Elena Ferrante’s Naples books are essentially about knowledge—its possibilities and its limits. Intellectual knowledge, sexual knowledge, political knowledge. What kind of knowledge does it take to get by in this world?   ADVERTISEMENT   The Dark and Light of Francisco Goya Colm Tóibín There are two ways, perhaps, of looking at Goya.   Now We Face 2016! Michael Tomasky With Republican Senate and House committee chairmen soon to have investigative and subpoena power, the Obama era will likely end as acrimoniously as it began.   ADVERTISEMENT   The Question of Edward Snowden David Bromwich “The final value of action,” wrote Emerson, “is, that it is a resource.” It is up to other Americans now, the uncertain end ofCitizenfour says, to rouse ourselves and find the value of Edward Snowden’s action as a resource.   A Thieves’ Thanksgiving Charles Simic In this holiday season our crooks have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to celebrate.   UPCOMING EVENTS The New Literature from Europe Festival at Austrian Cultural Forum, a discussion ofPushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov at the Grolier Club, Godard’s Goodbye to Language at IFC Center, a ten-film retrospective of Mario Monicelli at Film Forum, Egon Schiele at the Neue Galerie, commemorating Augustus in Rome, the art, craft, and technology of the Vikings in Berlin, and more.