Thursday A recent reflection about Trump and Trumpism by Editorial Board’s John Stoehr has me thinking of the Marquis de Sade and Fyodor Dostoevsky. To understand the president and his devoted followers, Stoehr says, try sadism. Stoehr is initially puzzled that people like Trump don’t want power in order to enact policy. He comes to […]
Monthly Archives: June 2019
Does Sade Explain Trumpism?
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Brothers Karamazov, Donald Trump, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Justine, Marquis de Sade, sadism Comments closed
Kafkaesque & Other Common Lit Allusions
Wednesday In a recent Literary Hub article, Emily Temple honors the 95th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death (June 3, 1924) with a list of times she has encountered the media calling something Kafkaesque. As is often the case in such matters, the term has been much abused, but that shouldn’t make us any the less […]
Sherlock: Hard-Boiled or Soft-Boiled?
Tuesday I share today an Alexis Hall essay I encountered in CrimeReads arguing that Sherlock Holmes is a hard-boiled detective. (Thanks to Literary Hub for the alert.) For those who study detective fiction, the thesis is startling because Holmes is generally grouped with the soft-boiled or puzzle-solving detectives, more like Dupin, Poirot, Miss Marple, Nero […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, existentialism, Farewell My Lovely, Maltese Falcon, Raymond Chandler, Sherlock Holmes Comments closed
Gnosticism’s Flight from Earth
Spiritual Sunday I have found myself exploring Gnosticism thanks to a marvelous poetry collection by my best friend from graduate school, Norman Finkelstein (the poet, not the political scientist). Norman has been included in a group of poets labeled “the New Gnostics,” which helps me make sense of From the Files of the Immanent Foundation. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Files of the Immanent Foundation, Gnosticism, Norman Finkelstein Comments closed
Doctor Zhivago vs. Soviet Communism
Thursday A new book explains how and why Boris Pasternak’s Nobel-prize winning Dr. Zhivago played an important role during the Cold War. Peter Finn’s and Petra Couvée’s The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, The CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book makes it sound as though former English majors were running the CIA’s Soviet Russia […]
I, My Dear, Was Born Today
Wednesday – On My Birthday, June 12 I turn 68 today so I share a birthday poem written by Matthew Prior (1664-1721). In it, he complains about being rejected by Clotilda, a name he plucks from the pastoral tradition. While the poet’s “jolly comrades” are prepared to “bring me music, wreaths, and mirth/And ask to […]
Couples Fighting: It Must Be Love
Tuesday I read plays all day yesterday with an eye toward an upcoming class on “Battling Couples in Theatre and Film (the Comic Version).” The September course is part of Sewanee’s “Lifelong Learning” series. As the course runs for four weeks, I will teach four plays and four movies, pairing a play with a film […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Aphra Behn, couples comedy, Edward Albee, George Bernard Shaw, His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Much Ado about Nothing, Pillow Talk, Pygmalion, Romantic Comedy, Rover, screwball comedy, Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare Comments closed
