Islamo-correctness

The Winter issue, for which we'll try a rough layout today, does not really deserve the buzz that it's all-sex-all-the-time.

For example, one story, a first-time-in-print, concerns a hapless young man, a naif in the tradition of Candide, who discovers he can memorize books just by touching them. Among the books he memorizes is the Koran. I will not give away any more than that, but I will say that this story, albeit essentially comic, is deeply respectful of Islam and of what it means to be a Hafiz, that is, someone who has memorized the Koran. It is also a metaphor of America's innocent ignorance, and of its hapless attempts to interact with a complex and very different culture.

There are days when I would be proud to be hit by a fatwah, but this is not one of them.