Two crackerjack sentences from the April 17, 2023 New Yorker. 

The first, from Anthony Lane, touches on a pet peeve (a sin which decry but have probably committed too). It´s a devastating book review of a Georges Vigarello's "History of Fatigue" -- normally I wouldn't approve of reviewing a book just to tear it apart but the review is so good (in pointing out everything missing from the Vigarello book, he actually writes an appealing essay that doesn't depend exclusively on his vicious wit), and it sounds like the book sounds like it deserves it.

p 59-60: "... in what, more than once, Vigarello calls “the onset of modernity.”

When was that, by the way? Was there a particular wet afternoon in March, 1744, when mankind, drumming its fingers on the kitchen table, and fed up with the creaky old ways of thinking and behaving, decided to get modern?

And from the review of a collection of the complete work of Charles Portis, Casey Cep writes:

66--"...the obstacles Portis's characters face are allergic to allegory and symbolism; their rewards, even at their most fantastical, are humble and fleeting. In a Portis novel, when you ride off into the sunset you have to make camp in the dark."