The Paris Review Fall 2025 (253)

The story of Aesop’s partnership with The Paris Review is one plotted by a deep reverence for the written word. Since 2015, we have been proud to offer this esteemed quarterly for purchase in select stores across the globe and at aesop.com inviting customers to join us in discussing the thought-provoking ideas explored in its pages. Now more than ever we believe literature has the power to nurture meaningful connections, nourish weary minds and give voice to those whose words have, for too long, been kept in the margins—so, here’s to the next chapter. Aesop Chelsea 74 9th Ave, New York, NY 10011…

Why does the sun shine? Why does part of the moon go missing and then come back again? How come every flower has its own fragrance, but the grit and pebbles on the street smell of nothing? How can a bird soar through the sky, clearly heading toward town, then without seeming to turn around end up sitting right there in the courtyard? No one told it to chirp and warble, but look at it chirping and warbling its head off. Aren’t you afraid you’ll run out of strength, little birdie? Maybe just perch on a branch and pace yourself. And how about this brick wall, thirty years old and still going strong, keeping the courtyard and the outside world separate at all times, forcing people to use the gate—after…

Perfect Pussy “This Thursday you’ll have a substitute,”The teacher wrote—Pam Ederhuller,Previously a general practitioner.She was my doctor too! Tameka criedAt the front desk—we both had troubleCalling her by her first name. To be clear,This woman had Papped me when my snatchWas in no condition to be looked at.It was literally crazy up there, I told Tameka.I have no idea what she saw. In class, She was a doctor still, a measurer, scientist,Mathematician. Soon she would fly to KansasTo take a weeklong course on hand engraving,And at the end of it she would be ableTo write anything, in cursive that would cureHer of the last thirty years. I’m retiring, She told me at that last appointment,I want to have more time for my metalsmithing.Congratulations! I said, in a paper gown,My snatch…

I felt my life flick by at 2x speed. I used to be able to take my time eating the cheese out of a big sandwich or wandering the public library, watching kids peel the cardboard spines off Berenstain Bears books and mutilate them with marker. It wasn’t long ago that I spent hours sulking because I missed Joaquin, that I somehow always ended up at a Pret A Manger in Midtown, staring at more sandwiches—cage-free mayo, mature cheddar. Then I’d check and it would only be Tuesday. Now it was always Saturday again and I always had to go to my job at the vintage glasses store. You would think it might be a good thing, it always being the weekend. On Saturdays in the East Village people stepped…

The Moon that fell from heaven When the Moon fell, he fell from heavenfrom heaven on the porch.When the Moon fell, he fell from heaven,and no one saw him fall. The Stormgod let rain fall, he let rain fall on him,the Moon who fell from heaven.He let the rains fall on him. Fear seized him, the Moon who fell from heaven,afraid upon the porch.Anguish seized him, the Stormgod who let rain falllet rain fall from heavento the Moon upon the porch. From the 1350–1190 B.C.E. Hattian-Hittite text The Moon That Fell from Heaven Telipinu went Telipinu went, and he brought away the good.He brought away the plenty, the grain, and the wood. He brought away the hopes, the little bit of extra,He brought away the message that was written in…

For almost half a century, Eliot Weinberger has made an art of what might be called the impersonal essay. Scholarly articles, monographs, and ancient texts furnish the source material for these works, whose titles frequently resemble encyclopedia entries—“Agate,” “Angels,” “Empedocles,” “Ice,” “Lizards,” “Muhammad,” “The Sahara,” “Wrens,” “The World.” Some evoke the form of chronicles or oral histories; others read like excerpts from antiquarian commonplace books, accumulating aphorisms and anecdotes from various—often non-Western—civilizations. A reader opening Works on Paper (1986), Karmic Traces (2000), or The Ghosts of Birds (2016) to any page might come across a Tang dynasty governor’s address to the crocodiles of the Wu River; an account of the travels of Jón Ólafsson from Iceland to India in the early seventeenth century; or the final words of a Yorkshireman…