There is only one Dr. Nudel. In addition to being an incisive critic of Western Civ, and an extraordinarily gifted writer with a uniquely beguiling prose style, he is a well-known Manhattan book dealer. The good doctor has honored us with his permission to reproduce--right here, in Vintage Voice!--this his series of essays. They are called mutterings & ravings, or m&r to the cognoscenti, of whom you will shortly be one. They were originally published by Dr. Nudel on the (now sadly defunct) Bibliofind News bulletin boards, where they raised holy hell every time they appeared.
m&r, aside from providing a choice example of what Fielding once called "an eleemosynary treat", is also a concentrated initiation into the world of rare books; knowledge painstakingly acquired over years of patient scholarship and observation, decocted into an intoxicating literary elixir.
(Remember, ragazzi, you saw it here first.) "Those with the gift", wrote one besotted fan, "understand Dr. Nudel implicitly." Truly, we can only pity those without it.
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