Tag Archives: Marcel Proust

Food Is More Than Food for Esquivel

By Robin Bates | Published: April 19, 2018

Esquivel captures the greater significance of food in “Like Water for Chocolate.” I also share a whiskey cake recipe and reflect on the magic in magical realism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 100 Years of Solitude, cake recipe, Confessions, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate, magical realism, Midnight's Children, Remembrance of Things Past, Salman Rushdie, whiskey cake, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle | Comments closed

When It Comes to Culture, Bet on France

By Robin Bates | Published: November 18, 2015

In the wake of the ISIS attacks, France has something to fall back on: its proud literary tradition.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Albert Camus, Guillaume Apollinaire, ISIS, Jean Paul Sartre, John Oliver, Paris terror attacks, Victor Hugo | Comments closed

Portrait of the Lesbian as a Young Artist

By Robin Bates | Published: December 4, 2014

Proust and James Joyce were particularly important in helping Alison Bechdel negotiate her complex relations with her father.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alison Bechdel, Autobiography, Catcher in the Rye, Colette, Fun House, homosexuality, Importance of Being Earnest, J. D. Salinger, James and the Giant Peach, James Joyce, lesbianism, Oscar Wilde, Remembrance of Things Past, Roald Dahl, Ulysses, Winnie the Pooh | Comments closed

10 Famous Fetish Objects in Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: November 6, 2014

Literature is filled with fetish objects that take on outsized significance to various characters.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexander Pope, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Emma, Great Expectations, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Prophet's Hair, Rape of the Lock, Salman Rushie, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tell-Tale Heart, Tom Jones | Comments closed

A Judge’s Love Affair with Marcel Proust

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2013

Marcel Proust has made Stephen Breyer a better Supreme Court justice.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged À la recherche du temps perdu, constitutional law, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court | Comments closed

The Brave New World of Twitterature

By Robin Bates | Published: May 31, 2012

Depending on your point of view, literature reduced to tweets is either comic or horrifying.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Catcher in the Rye, E. M. Forster, Franz Kafka, Gustave Flaubert, Howards End, In Search of Lost Time, J. D. Salinger, Jane Austen, John Milton, John Steinbeck, Madame Bovary, Metamorphosis, Of Mice and Men, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice, Trial | Comments closed

Literary Salons with One Who Is Dying

By Robin Bates | Published: July 15, 2009

I have written about my close friend and colleague Alan Paskow, whose lungs (although he does not smoke) have been attacked by an aggressive cancer. One response of the community has been to gather for literary salons every two or three weeks. Anywhere from 15-20 people attend each one, despite busy schedules. In attendance are […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged David Lynch, death and dying, Hamlet, In Search of Things Past, Mulholland Drive | Comments closed