Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Time for a smile …
Using%20form%3A%20Parody%20with%20a%20message%3A%20Marcus%20Bales%2C%20%u2018The%20Easy%20Way%20Taken%u2019%20%7C%20Form%20in%20Formless%20Times (Hat tip, Dave Lull.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Monday, January 20, 2025
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Friday, January 17, 2025
Tennesse Williams
Much has been written about A Streetcar Named Desire -- and I won't attempt to rehash that here. But having just read the play for the first time, I will offer one point: this is a dark play, punctuated by acts of deliberate cruelty. I was surprised by this, actually: because while I had a general sense for the play and its position in the pantheon, I was not expecting such a dire view of, well, of the human condition. This is a play with very little remorse: characters come into repeated conflict, but rarely apologize for it. The nature of playwriting -- the very structure of a play -- magnifies this conflict as the scaffolding of a novel is peeled away. Without the narrative, and the description, and the literary enclosure, all that's left in Streetcar is pain and loss. This moment in time -- this vision of characters, in a specific place, with a specific set of concerns -- is one, in my reading, of unyielding despair.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Blogging note …
i am about to be taken to the hospital for a ptovedure. no bloging until sometime later,
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
High-ranking poet …
… ‘Geoffrey Chaucer’ Review: A Worldly, Well-Traveled Poet. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Monday, January 13, 2025
Sunday, January 12, 2025
One greart writer on another …
Auden reviews Tolkien | Epistle of Dude
The demands made on the writer’s powers in an epic as long as “The Lord of the Rings” are enormous and increase as the tale proceeds-the battles have to get more spectacular, the situations more critical, the adventures more thrilling-but I can only say that Mr. Tolkien has proved equal to them.
Listen in …
… This year will mark the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Rachel Cusk
I've written on the blog before about Rachel Cusk. I think she's a singular novelist: her Faye trilogy represents a high point in modern literature. Those books occupy their own space, and they have a lingering quality very rare in this world of unrelenting content.
Having so enjoyed the Faye novels, I recently read another of Cusk's book, Second Place. There's much here which is similar to the earlier works: the uncertain relationship between Cusk and the narrator, the interjection of philosophy and reflection into common experience, and the ability to universalize the banal -- to quietly endow it with an unexpected weight.
True, Second Place is a book about a second physical space, but equally, it is about the sensation of feeling that you, as a person, have perpetually come in 'second place.' There is a lot here about the dynamics between men and women, and about what it takes to generate great art. There are reflections about the hierarchy of that art, and about the effects of the artistic impulse, especially on families or friendships.
Second Place is at times a dire, brutal recounting of one woman's interactions with two different types of men: one silent, one aggressive. But it is more than that: it is a story of this woman's gradual awakening to her own sense of power and artistry. Second Place is not as strong, perhaps, as the Faye novels, but that is not a critique as much as a further celebration of those earlier books. In the end, Second Place takes on a tremendous amount -- art, gender, power, space -- and distills it to its core. These things are real, Cusks seems to suggest, while we experience them, and not only in hindsight, not only upon reflection. We would do well to remember this.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Friday, January 10, 2025
Thursday, January 09, 2025
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
Monday, January 06, 2025
Sunday, January 05, 2025
Saturday, January 04, 2025
Friday, January 03, 2025
As time passes …
Anecdotal Evidence: 'A Goddam Stone Wall You Butt Your Head Into'
As Bette Davis said, “Old age ain't no place for sissies.” I can attest to that.
Thursday, January 02, 2025
Wednesday, January 01, 2025
Hmm …
The Elements of Buckley's Style | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
i remember Bill as one of the most perfect gentlemen I haveknown.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Something we should all ponder …
What Frank Lloyd Wright tells us about late bloomers (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Monday, December 30, 2024
Sunday, December 29, 2024
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