Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

@eldashraheb.bsky.social

3.1K followers 4.5K following 1.9K posts

https://www.abeelraheb.com Egyptian-American Editor and Writer (WGA West) Desperately trying to learn Spanish We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

www.abeelraheb.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · Jun 18

Once again, I’m reading Nabakov shit on your (and my) faves, while praising them too. Always a great time. #booksky 💙📚

Chesterton, G. K. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.
• Conan Doyle, Arthur. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14, but no longer.
Essentially a writer for very young people. Romantic in the large sense.
• Conrad, Joseph. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.
• Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Dislike him. A cheap sensationalist, clumsy and vulgar. A prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. Some of his scenes are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his reactionary journalism seriously.
• The Double. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Gogol's "Nose."
• The Brothers Karamazov. Dislike it intensely.
• Crime and Punishment. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole.
• Douglas, Norman. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
• Dreiser, Theodore. Dislike him. A formidable mediocrity.
• Eliot, T. S. Not quite first-rate.
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo. His poetry is delightful.
• Faulkner, William. Dislike him. Writer of corncobby chronicles. To consider them masterpieces is an absurd delusion. A nonentity, means absolutely nothing to me.
• Flaubert, Gustave. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.
Read complete works between 14 and 15.
• Forster, E. M. Only read one of his novels (possibly A Passage to India?) and disliked it.
• Freud, Sigmund. A figure of fun. Loathe him. Vile deceit. Freudian interpretation of dreams is charlatanic, and satanic, nonsense.
• Galsworthy, John. A formidable mediocrity.
• García Lorca, Federico. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.
• Gogol, Nikolai. Nobody takes his mystical didacticism seriously. At his worst, as in his Ukrainian stu…

• Hemingway, Ernest. A writer of books for boys. Certainly better than Conrad.
Has at least a voice of his own. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Loathe his works about bells, balls, and bulls.
• The Killers. Delightful, highly artistic. Admirable.
• The Old Man and the Sea. Wonderful. The description of the iridescent fish and rhythmic urination is superb.
• Housman, A. E. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
• Ilf and Petrov. Two wonderfully gifted writers. Absolutely first-rate fiction.
• Ivanov, Georgy. A good poet but a scurrilous critic.
• James, Henry. Dislike him rather intensely, but now and then his wording causes a kind of electric tingle. Certainly not a genius.
• Joyce, James. Great. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
Let people compare me to Joyce by all means, but my English is patball to Joyce's champion game. A genius.
• Ulysses. A divine work of art. Greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose.
Towers above the rest of Joyce's writing. Noble originality,
unique lucidity of
thought and style. Molly's monologue is the weakest chapter in the book.
Love it for its lucidity and precision.
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Never liked it. A feeble and garrulous book.
• Finnegans Wake. A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book. Conventional and drab, redeemed from utter insipidity only by infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations. Detest it. A cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. Indifferent to it, as to all regional literature written in dialect. A tragic failure and a frightful bore.
• Kafka, Franz.
• The Metamorphosis. Second-greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose.
• Kazantzakis, Nikos. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.
• Keats, John. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.
• Khodasevich, Vladislav. The gr…

• Lawrence, D. H. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes. Execrable.
• Lowell, Robert. Not a good translator. A greater offender than Auden.
• Mandelshtam, Osip. A wonderful poet, the greatest in Soviet Russia. His poems are admirable specimens of the human mind at its deepest and highest. Not as good as Blok. His tragic fate makes his poetry seem greater than it actually is.
• Mann, Thomas. Dislike him. Second-rate, ephemeral, puffed-up.
• Death in Venice. Asinine. To consider it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion.
Poshlost. Mediocre, but anyway plausible.
• Maupassant, Guy de. Certainly not a genius.
• Maugham, W. Somerset. Mediocre. Fakes realism with easy platitudes.
Certainly not a genius.
• Melville, Herman. Love him. One would like to have filmed him at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.
• Marx, Karl. Loathe him.
• Milton, John. A genius.
• Odoevsky, Vladimir. Indifferent to his works.
• Yury Olesha. Some absolutely first-rate fiction.
• Orczy, Baroness Emmuska.
• The Scarlet Pimpernel. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer.
• Pasternak, Boris. An excellent poet, but a poor novelist.
• Doctor Zhivago. Detest it. Melodramatic and vilely written. To consider it a masterpiece is an absurd delusion. Pro-Bolshevist, historically false. A sorry thing, clumsy, trivial, melodramatic, with stock situations and trite coincidences.
• Pirandello, Luigi. Never cared for him.
• Plato. Not particularly fond of him.
• Poe, Edgar Allan. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, but no longer. One would like to have filmed his wedding.
• Pound, Ezra. Definitely second-rate. A total fake. A venerable fraud.
• Proust, Marcel. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter.
• In Search of Lost Time. The first half is the fourth-greatest masterpiece of 20th-century prose.

• Queneau, Raymond.
• Exercises de style. A thrilling masterpiece, one of the greatest stories in French literature.
• Zazie. Very fond of it.
• Ransom, John Crowe.
• Captain Carpenter. Admire this poem.
• Rimbaud, Arthur. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter.
• Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Great. A favorite. How freely one breathes in his marvelous labyrinths! Lucidity of thought, purity of poetry. Magnificently poetical and original.
• Rolland, Romain. A formidable mediocrity.
• Salinger, J. D. By far one of the finest artists in recent years.
• "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." A great story. A particular favorite.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Even more awful than Camus.
• Nausea. Second-rate. A tense-looking but really very loose type of writing.
• Schwartz, Delmore.
• "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." A particular favorite.
• Schweitzer, Albert. Detest him.
• Shakespeare, William. Read complete works between 14 and 15. One would like to have filmed him in the role of the King's Ghost. His verbal poetic texture is the greatest the world has ever known, and immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. It is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play. A genius.
• Sterne, Laurence. Love him.
• Sue, Eugène. Melodramatic, second-rate.
• Tagore, Rabindranath. A formidable mediocrity.
• Tolstoy, Aleksey. A writer of some talent with two or three science fiction stories or novels which are memorable.
• Tolstoy, Leo. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. Read complete works between 14 and 15. Nobody takes his utilitarian moralism seriously. A genius.
• Anna Karenina. Incomparable prose artistry. The supreme masterpiece of 19th-century literature.
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A close second to Anna Karenina.
• Resurrection. Detest it.
• The Kreutzer Sonata. Detest it.
• War and Peace. A little too long. A rollicking historical novel written for the general reader, specifically for the young. Artistically unsatisfying.
Cumbersome mes…

7 8 57

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 3h

OBAA's temporal proximity to Kirk's death is not a 'macabre coincidence'. Horrific shit happens in America every day; right now. Any cultural product's release would probably induce for one person or another a 'macabre coincidence', you just don't want to think about America's grim underbelly.

1 8 32

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 3h

I wonder if *part* of video’s takeover is based on the fact that websites are unreadable in mobile. Page reloads, pop ups, obnoxious cookie demands, it’s basically become impossible.

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 3h

Things are quite grim now but remember the cultural hegemony of Chuck Norris jokes?

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 4h

Most 2009 song and video in existence

m.youtube.com/watch?v=VrDf...

Kid Cudi - Day 'N' Nite

YouTube video by KidCudiVEVO

m.youtube.com

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 5h

So good

m.youtube.com/watch?v=2XIx...

I Love Silksong, and I Also Hate Silksong | Semi-Ramblomatic

YouTube video by Second Wind

m.youtube.com

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 5h

Incredible

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 5h

Kaleb Horton dying before Mike Love proves that though the universe may not be obscene, it does contain obscenity.

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 1d

"well what are the Democrats supposed to do" I don't know! They're supposed to know! I'm not the one who sought and obtained a political position that would require me to know what to do when the ruling party attempts to install the President as a dictator!

39 770 3.9K

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Kimmy on the Radio 🎙️📻 @akakimmy.bsky.social · 8h

My fav headline from this year:

Headline from PC Gamer article that reads: "Hideo Kojima says he won't play the MGS 3 remake, mentions he knows loads of ways to kill people, doesn't elaborate, leaves"

By Joshua Wolens published July 31, 2025
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/hideo-kojima-says-he-wont-play-the-mgs-3-remake-mentions-he-knows-loads-of-ways-to-kill-people-doesnt-elaborate-leaves/

1 74 440

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 9h

Anyway,

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 9h

The wording of “Trump, 79,” activated such a hyper alert state that it took a minute to read the rest of the tweet. Like hearing a loud noise and having my face quickly shaken

Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

Trump, 79, has "cardiac age" of 65-year-old, doctor says reut.rs/4mZNZbu

Trump, 79, has "cardiac age" of 65-year-old, doctor says

Donald Trump was found to be in "exceptional health" in a medical evaluation, the U.S. president's doctor said in a memo released by the White House on Friday, with his "cardiac age" 14 years younger than in "chronological age."

reut.rs

1 2

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 13h

Greatest classically Romantic song I’ve ever heard

m.youtube.com/watch?v=FMi3...

The Broad Majestic Shannon

YouTube video by The Pogues - Topic

m.youtube.com

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 13h

Feeling seen in all the weird seasons

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 13h

Decided to eat a rotisserie chicken breast and five (5) carrots for my 3pm lunch

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Pop Crave @popcrave.com · 16h

Diane Keaton has passed away at the age of 79.

7 35 200

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1d

Was playing through Hollow Knight again and had to put it down and walk away. Contact damage and the healing system made me lose interest. I’ve played it twice before but have to pull the plug on this franchise, personally

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Caleb @calebjcook.bsky.social · 1d

That other Johnny Cash thing is insipid drivel dressed up as rage bait — not worth a single moment of attention. I recommend reading this wonderful piece by Kaleb Horton instead.

Johnny Cash: American Recordings

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today, we explore Johnny Cash’s 1994 comeback American Recordings.

pitchfork.com

1 5 19

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1d

It’s amazing how personal he was able to get within the brand boundaries of Pitchfork

1 1

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Irish Examiner @irishexaminer.bsky.social · 1d

Gareth O'Callaghan: We are afraid of getting old because it means becoming invisible

Fear of ageing is self-sabotaging and it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by causing those fears to come true

dlvr.it

1 1

Reposted by Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 1d

I 100% get why Link did the mutual aid Fridays.

Like, every time someone replies by telling me the need is met is one less person struggling in the world.

1 65 340

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1d

m.youtube.com/watch?v=5l39...

Bob Dylan - Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You (Live at Montreal Forum)

YouTube video by BobDylanVEVO

m.youtube.com

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1d

FaceTimed my 92 year old grandma and she was watching Wheel of Fortune at a frankly deafening volume. Endearing.

1 6

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 1d

Oh, good! Google just gives you straight up incorrect information when you google lyrics now! Will the magic of AI know no end?

2 1

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 2d

My favorite playwright alongside Chekhov. Pinter’s atmospheres and aggressive use of pauses are peerless

Patrick Wall @writer-patrickwall.bsky.social · 2d

Happy birthday, Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter and director, born 10 October 1930.

‘Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you … at any time.’
–Harold Pinter

#Readers #Writers #Books

Abe El-Raheb / Editor & Writer @eldashraheb.bsky.social · 2d

Having an old fashion at Idle Hour in his honor. This is where I first met him after being a fan and having limited correspondence with him for 10 years. He loved this place and would always come when he had “money to burn.”