Our Critics’ Year in Reading / The Book Review Podcast

rigor – строгость contemporaries – современники none of them felt this need or ability to understand the totality of the world around us – totality of the world – всю совокупность мира we can only really have a sense of a sliver of what we’re looking at depending on what we’re focusing on at a given moment – sliver – щепка divisive – вызывающий разногласия valuable and generative – ценный и плодотворный something about it that was just off-putting – off-putting – что-то отталкивающе to mess with my mind – to cause someone to feel confused