McCain’s favorite novels included “Great Gatsby,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Huckleberry Finn,” and works by Somerset Maugham. One can understand why.
Posted in Fitzgerald (F. Scott), Hemingway (Ernest), Maugham (Somerset), Stevenson (Robert Louis), Twain (Mark) | Also tagged F. Scott Fitzgerald, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn, John McCain, Kidnapped, Mark Twain, Of Human Bondage, Razor's Edge, Robert Louis Stevenson, Somerset Maugham, Tom Sawyer | A Guardian article argues that critical praise for sexist male authors valorizes patriarchal attitudes.
Posted in Bronte (Charlotte), Nabokov (Vladimir), Roth (Philip K.) | Also tagged Charlotte Bronte, Donald Trump, Feminism, Hillary Clinton, Human Stain, Jane Eyre, Lolita, MeToo, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Sexism, Vladimir Nabokov | In which I argue that great pro-war literature doesn’t exist, including “The iliad” and “War and Peace.” (Both works are magnificent; I just don’t see them as pro-war.)
Posted in Homer, Tennyson (Alfred Lord), Tolstoy (Leo) | Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", Alfred Lord Tennyson, anti-war literature, Catch 22, Donald Trump, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homer, Iliad, Joseph Heller, Leo Tolstoy, Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, war, War and Peace | The GOP’s decision to allow the hunting of hibernating bears and denned wolf cubs raises issues of wannabe machismo that one can find in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”
In a remarkable interview with “The New York Times,” Barack Obama spoke about the importance of literature in his life. The range of his reading and the sensitivity of his responses is astounding.
Posted in Bellow (Saul), Cixin (Liu), Diaz (Junot), Flynn (Gillian), Goff (Lauren), Hemingway (Ernest), Kerouac (Jack), Kerouac (Jack), Kingston (Maxine Hong), Lahiri (Jhumpa), Lee (Harper), Lessing (Doris), Mailer (Norman), Marquez (Gabriel Garcia), Morrison (Toni), Naipaul (V.S.), Robinson (Marilynne), Roth (Philip K.), Shakespeare (William), Whitehead (Colson) | Also tagged Barack Obama, Bend in the River, Colson Whitehead, Doris Lessing, Fates and Furies, Garcia Gabriel Marquez, Gilead, Gillian Flynn, Golden Notebook, Gone Girl, Jack Kerouac, Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Diaz, Lauren Goff, Liu Cixin, Marilynne Robinson, Martha Nussbaum, Maxine Hong Kingston, Moveable Feast, Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Philip Roth, Road, Saul Bellow, Song of Solomon, Tempest, Three Body Problem, Toni Morrison, Underground Railroad, V.S. Naipaul, Warrior Woman, William Shakespeare | If Bill Gorton, a positive figure in “The Sun Also Rises,” is politically incorrect, does that mean that Donald Trump is correct in his attacks on PC? Award-winning high school teacher Carl Rosin tackles the issues by contrasting Gorton and Trump.
Donald Trump has a very distinctive twitter style., one that would be great for classic book reviews. A BuzzFeed writer imagines how he might have reviewed “Hamlet,” “Tristram Shandy,” “Ulysses,” and other classics.
Posted in Hemingway (Ernest), Joyce (James), Shakespeare (William), Sterne (Lawrence), Tolkien (J.R.R.) | Also tagged Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Hamlet, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Joyce, Lawrence Sterne, Lord of the Rings, Stranger, Sun Also Rises, Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, William Shakespeare | The death of Cecil the Lion conjures up images of Aslan in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and of the lion in Ernest Hemingway’s “Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”
NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof recently sang the praises of the liberal arts and talked about the vital importance of literature.
Posted in Hemingway (Ernest), Homer, Hosseini (Khaled), Lahiri (Jhumpa), Morrison (Toni) | Also tagged Homer, Iliad, Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Hosseini, Liberal arts education, Odyssey, Old Man and the Sea, Toni Morrison | 
