The Paris Review

How the Grinch Self-Actualized

It appears a great deal is already known about the Grinch. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904, did some graduate work at Oxford, left school to establish his Zarathustra’s eyrie on Mount Crumpit in Canada—and was fifty-three years old at the time of his conversion to Christianity. I should say his putative conversion.

The book documenting this most famous episode of his life is called —not . It doesn’t matter; Google knows what you meant. The television cartoon, upon which so many people in my generation have based their personalities, aired for the first

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Paris Review

The Paris Review1 min read
Credits
Cover: © Jeremy Frey, courtesy of the artist, Karma, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Page 12, © Jeremy Frey, courtesy of the artist, Karma, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; pages 34, 43, 48, 50, courtesy of Mary Robison; page 53, photograph by
The Paris Review1 min read
From “Section Of Adoring Nocturnes”
Stellatundra, Albadune, Whiteout,Zebranivem, Faloop’njoompoola. —Engaland, she said. Or a crystal bead of meager bees, a noctifuge suitcaseon the tip of the tongue. Give me loops.Give me turtles. O remolino de abejas marronesen un veliz “noctífugo.”
The Paris Review2 min read
Contributors
MOSAB ABU TOHA is a poet, short-story writer, and essayist. His second poetry book, Forest of Noise, is forthcoming from Knopf in fall 2024. REBECCA BENGAL is the author of Strange Hours. DEEPA BHASTHI is a writer and critic who translates Kannadalan

Related Books & Audiobooks