Monthly Archives: June 2022

When a Novel Affected Clock Sales

Friday I have lots of thoughts about the Congressional hearings on Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, which opened last night, and am working up a post that references Milton’s rebel angels. I’ll end this week, however, on a lighter note, an interesting footnote that my English professor son alerted me to. Apparently, Laurence Sterne’s […]

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To Julia, Upon 49 Years of Marriage

A James Weldon Johnson poem for our 49th wedding anniversary.

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Angels in Pullman’s Fantasy

In “His Dark Materials” Pullman turns Milton’s “Paradise Lost” on its head. The fallen angels are the good guys.

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Good Omens and Vladimir Putin

To imagine the reluctance of Russian soldiers to fight, check out this scene in “Good Omens.”

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Atticus: Future Racist or NeverTrumper?

To see how gun violence and white supremacy are linked, look at “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

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The Moonlight Leaks Through

It is when we are feeling that all is ruined that sometimes the Pentecostal spirit leaks through, like moonlight in a ruined house.

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Dying of a Broken Heart

The husband of a Uvalde shooting victim died of a broken heart. Henry Fielding mentions the sickness in “Tom Jones.”

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To Welcome in June, Stand and Stare

To celebrate June, just sit back, relax, and observe.

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Hemingway on What War Atrocities Mean

Undisciplined conscripts are likely to commit atrocities–and also, as Hemingway notes in “Farewell to Arms,” to lose.

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