Bumping Into Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik’s “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli” and “Man Goes to See a Doctor” are among the most masterful essays I’ve read. I know people who find Gopnik’s work charming and funny and insightful, and others who think he’s cloying and precious and pretentious. James Wolcott, in the New Republic, appears to belong to the second group. He wonders “if Adam Gopnik was put on this earth to annoy.”