Clik here to view.
From the Archives: Cato of the Antipodes
In literature as in life, there is something to be said for indeterminacy, poetical ambiguity, and the aching, open synapses of incomplete ideas. But the essays of Gore Vidal are a break from all that,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Glory, Maiden, Glory!’: The Uncomfortable Chivalry of Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe
For readers of a certain age, the mention of Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819) will bring some predictable images to mind. Perhaps you see the garish cover of the abridged copy which an aunt sent you as a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s a Mystery: “Every man has his price”
Red Star Burning By Brian Freemantle St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne, 2012 House Blood By Mike Lawson Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012 Red Star Burning is the fifteenth in Brian Freemantle’s Charlie Muffin...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From the Archives: A Voyeur in the Archives
One has only to spend a term trying to teach college literature to realize that the quickest way to kill an author’s vitality for potential readers is to present that author ahead of time as “great” or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s a Mystery: “No one is infallible or invisible”
Syndrome E By Franck Thilliez Viking, 2012 Ludovic Sénéchal is a diehard film buff from Lille, France who spends most of his salary earned as a functionary at the Department of Social Security on old...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Trouble in Mind
The underappreciated English writer J. G. Farrell was born in 1935 in Liverpool to Irish parents and died young in 1979 in mysterious, untimely, and dramatic fashion—he was swept out to sea while...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Other Than Faith
What Happened to Sophie Wilder By Christopher R. Beha Tin House, 2012 How Should a Person Be? By Sheila Heti Henry Holt and Co, 2012 A public referendum on religious belief has played out for the past...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s a Mystery: “Nobody escaped the desire for vengeance. Nobody.”
A Wanted Man By Lee Child Delacorte Press, 2012 The Beautiful Mystery By Louise Penny Minotaur, 2012 If you’re a fan, a new Jack Reacher novel is cause for celebration and, if you’re not, high time you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Claiming the Future
The Future is Not Ours: New Latin American Fiction Edited by Diego Trelles Paz, Translated by Janet Hendrickson Open Letter, 2012 Though the recent attention given to such writers as Roberto Bolaño and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First Person Singular
Winter Journal Paul Auster Henry Holt, 2012 Toward the close of his new memoir, Winter Journal, Paul Auster chronicles the inception of his first prose work, “White Spaces,” another winter journal...
View Article
