Wow

I was all excited when I saw that the New Yorker had a review essay on Benjamin Disraeli, then I ran into sentences like this one:

Disraeli is Milton’s Satan set loose in Tennyson’s rookery, the energy principle that helps keep the landscape around him from being merely pious.

...and I started gagging on the pretentiousness. And it gets worse from there. Too bad. But, hey, if that sort of stuff appeals to you, feel free to read the whole thing.