Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

Trump Policy Is Oliver Twist Redux

By Robin Bates | Published: June 22, 2018

Dickens would have a field day with the Trump administration’s decision to separate children from their families.

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A Tale of Two Realities

By Robin Bates | Published: May 17, 2018

The U.S. celebrating the opening of the Jerusalem embassy while Israeli soldier kill scores of Gaza protesters bring to mind Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities.”

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Mike Pence=Elmer Gantry + Uriah Heep

By Robin Bates | Published: May 15, 2018

Columnist George Will calls Mike Pence a cross between Elmer Gantry and Uriah Heep. I see the two and raise to a Dante sycophant and Shakespeare’s Cassius.

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Literature Has Paul Ryan’s Number

By Robin Bates | Published: April 12, 2018

Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Chinua Achebe, John Milton, and Thomas Hardy see through men like departing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

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No Miss Havisham for Hillary

By Robin Bates | Published: September 18, 2017

In her account of the 2016 election aftermath, Hillary Clinton resolved not to become a Miss Havisham. This is testimony to her depth of soul.

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Trump as Miss Havisham

By Robin Bates | Published: August 2, 2017

Frank Bruni compares Donald Trump to Miss Havisham, forever fixated on November 8 before the rose lost its bloom. The GOP would do well to break free as Pip does.

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Democrats Have Dickens, GOP Ayn Rand

By Robin Bates | Published: March 19, 2017

We see the hand of Ayn Rand in Trump’s proposed budget cuts. Charles Dickens would understand what’s going on.

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Dickens Returned Xmas to Medieval Roots

By Robin Bates | Published: December 22, 2016

Dickens’s “Christmas Carol” didn’t so much invent Christmas as we have come to know it as take it back to its medieval roots.

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The Magic Spell Cast by Stories

By Robin Bates | Published: December 5, 2016

In “1Q84” Murakami describes novels as holding out the promise to solve our problems only we can’t quite make them out.

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