Rediscovery
"We do not retreat from reality, we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves...by dipping them in myth, we see them more clearly."--C.S. Lewis
View ArticleA Sense of Place
I've been reading in Hemingway's "The Fifth Column (and four unpublished stories of the Spanish Civil War)." For those of you who may not know, I consider Hemingway to be one of the best writers in the...
View Article11/9 versus 9/11
I started out feeling apathetic about Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat” (corporate and political theories are not something in which I see myself participating in in the future), but by...
View ArticleOh, the noise noise noise noise!
Don DeLilo's "White Noise," has been hailed as a masterpiece of postmodern literature. I'm sure it is, but it just didn't ring true with me in the way that I've come to expect masterpieces to do. Maybe...
View ArticleFundamentals
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (by Mohsin Hamid, published 2007) lives up to the hype. It is the Post-9/11 lit that was meant to be. Granted, I try to avoid Post-9/11 lit, but this one is definitely...
View ArticleClean, Smokeless, and Efficient
I'm only a few pages into Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" and already, it's got some thought rolling about. [edit 12/29: I finished the book between writing the first three paragraphs and the rest of the...
View ArticleMusic and Lies
"Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why."If only this statement (from the dust jacket of Musicophilia) were true. It is almost true. Maybe if...
View ArticleAtonement
What does it mean to atone for something? Is atonement punishment? Is it a righting of wrongs? An internal acceptance of events? In his recently-cinematized novel, Ian McEwan raises these questions and...
View ArticleEs muss sein! (It must be!)
"It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being so fascinated by mysterious coincidences...but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives...
View ArticleThe Big Stuff
Judith Levine's "Not Buying It"is not totally devoted to her tale of a year of non-consumption. She takes plenty of detours into memoir and politics, but when she stays on topic, it is well-researched,...
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