In a dinner conversation with academic colleagues and novelist Rachel Kranz, we grappled with the question of whether those who commit atrocities pay a price for doing so. I came to the conclusion that it is a question that novelists and poets are sometimes better at answering than academics.
Monthly Archives: July 2010
Is There a Price for Doing Evil?
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Mask of Evil", Bertolt Brecht, Evil, Nazis, Rachel Kranz, racism, Suffering Comments closed
Defending Miss Watson
Many readers of Huckleberry Finn enjoy laughing at Miss Watson’s approach to teaching Huck. She tries to use the Bible to scare him into good behavior, insists that he sit still, and prohibits him from smoking and drinking. Romantics that we are, we make fun of her educational philosophy and find her a hypocrite, especially […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Class, Education, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, racism, slavery Comments closed
So You Want to Tell Your Story . . .
Balthus My friend Rachel Kranz, author of the novel Leaps of Faith, is visiting us at the moment, and we were talking about the number of times that people approach her about writing a book about their lives. As they envision it, they will tell her their stories and she will write them up. We […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Adam's Curse", Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, Fame, Rachel Kranz, William Butler Yeats, Writing Comments closed
Europe and America, Fantasy Projections
North Americans have regarded Europe as a cultural Mecca for a long time and often use their summer vacations to travel there as though on a pilgrimage. This has been true of a number of American writers, including Mark Twain, Henry James, the ex-patriots of the 1920’s (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein), and T. S. Eliot. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Concert Stages of Europe, Culture, Dominion, Erica Johnson Debeljak, forbidden bread, Inert Landscapes of Gyorgy Ferenc, Jack Hodgins, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Richard Ford, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Tamas Dobozy, Travel Comments closed
Rising Again to Dance
Chidi Okoye (Nigeria) Spiritual Sunday I refute Berkeley thus, Samuel Johnson famously said. And kicked a rock. Bishop Berkeley was the 18th century idealist philosopher who asked how we know reality is really there if we are dependent upon our senses for perceiving it. Is the rock in existence when we turn our backs? Johnson’s […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "To Be Alive", Bishop Berkeley, Dance, Gregory Orr, Lucille Clifton, materialism, Religion, Samuel Johnson, Science, Spirituality Comments closed
George Steinbrenner, Not a Hollow Man
Sports Saturday Mistah Steinbrenner—he dead. So I imagine T. S. Eliot announcing the death of the legendary Yankee owner this past week. That’s because, if one goes by Eliot’s famous 1925 poem “The Hollow Men,” one could not say that “the Boss” was “Shape without form, shade without colour,/ Paralysed force, gesture without motion.” In fact, an […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Hollow Men", Baseball, George Steinbrenner, Sports, T. S. Eliot Comments closed
The Magic Flute and Teenage Hormones
Film Friday The nature of Spain’s World Cup victory over Holland seems to have stuck with me all this past week.Spanish elegance won out over a Dutch “kick ’em in the legs” strategy (check out the state of hero Andres Iniesta’s legs here), and I have been writing about Prospero triumphing over Caliban and John […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged adolescence, As Good as It Gets, Ingmar Berman, Magic Flute, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Comments closed
And Universal Darkness Buries All
Yesterday I talked about irresponsible political commentators and politicians and how they reminded me of the scribblers that John Dryden was worried about in the 1680’s. In the 1740’s Alexander Pope was even more pessimistic about the threat they posed. In The Dunciad he imagines an inevitable cultural slide until “universal darkness buries all.” Harold […]
Enough Already, Rush, Glenn, Shadwell!
Last week when I complained about Christopher Hitchens, I think I was reacting as much to the incessant chatter of pundits as to Hitchens himself. At present there appear to be non-stop voices competing with each other to see who can make the most outrageous claims or confrontational statements, whether on talk radio, cable television, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Alexander Pope, Dunciad, Glenn Beck, John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe, politics, Rush Limbaugh, satire, Talk Shows Comments closed
