Tag Archives: Samuel Beckett

Donald Trump and Waiting for Justice

For years we have been awaiting for our own Godot, which is to say, justice for Trump. Perhaps Godot has finally shown up.

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Alas, Poor Twitter–I Knew Him, Ho-Ratio

Literary allusions have been flying, many with a sense of doom, since Elon Musk purchased Twitter.

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Waiting for Godot–or Gopot

Democrats waiting for bipartisan compromise is like waiting for Godot.

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Fathers & Sons: He Goes His Way, I Mine

Wednesday The talk with my son that I described in Monday’s post reminded me of talks with my own father where I was sure he was wrong. I’ve since concluded that I was not as right as I thought I was and that our disagreements came down to our different life arcs. Our arguments came […]

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Which Narrative Fits Mueller’s Report?

Monday Two weeks ago I had an interesting interchange with reader Josh Grumet about which narrative would emerge once Robert Mueller submitted his report. While I said that liberals and NeverTrumpers were rooting for a Sherlock Holmes  ending, I feared we would end up with a Samuel Beckett non-conclusion. Josh, meanwhile, compared Trump supporters to […]

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Are We Watching Shakespeare or Beckett?

Friday When assuring my English majors that they will find jobs in the world beyond college, I sometimes point out that they are experts in narrative. Increasingly we are learning how much we process reality through stories, and political operatives talk ceaselessly about “controlling the narrative.” How you organize facts (or for that matter, lies) […]

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Do Endings Reveal Meaning of Life?

Monday My wife Julia alerted me to an intriguing although somewhat frustrating article in Atlantic about the end of time. Drawing on Frank Kermode’s 1967 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Megan Garber wrestles with an issue recently raised by The Washington Post: how do we live with constant reminders […]

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Imagine Lit Characters in Reality TV

Thursday I came across this enjoyable tweet from one Ross Danniel Bullen, who imagines a Victorian version of the House Hunters television show: Host: I— Henry James: I should like a kitchen whose concept is – how shall I conceive of it – not closed, not in some way occluded, but bright, agape, unrestrained as […]

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My Dinner with Mladen

An account of a dinner with an old Slovenian friend and intellectual.

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