Taoist Chuang Tzu has a story about grieving that I find immensely comforting.
Tag Archives: Tristram Shandy
A Taoist Response to Grieving
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Chuang Tzu, death and grieving, Laurence Sterne, Taoism Comments closed
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 […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged clocks, Country Wife, Enlightenment, John Wilmot, Laurence Sterne, Plain Dealer, William Wycherley Comments closed
Imagining Little Ocean’s Future
Looking for the literary significance of my latest grandchild, I turn to Walcott, Whitman, Masefield, Coleridge, and Byron. What emerges is a mystical seeker.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", "Sea Fever", "Tales of the Islands", baby names, Derek Walcott, J. D. Salinger, John Masefield, John Milton, Laurence Sterne, Lord Byron, Lucille Clifton, Paradise Lost, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, To Esme with Love and Squalor, Walt Whitman, William Blake Comments closed
If Trump Tweeted Classic Lit Reviews…
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 Uncategorized Also tagged Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Ernest Hemingway, Hamlet, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Joyce, Lawrence Sterne, Lord of the Rings, Stranger, Sun Also Rises, Ulysses, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Literature as a Social Activity
Literature becomes especially interesting when it enters social situations.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Haruki Murakami, Lawrence Sterne, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy Comments closed
To Esmé and Alban with Love (No Squalor)
With names from Salinger and Blake, my two new grandchildren have promising destinies.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Children, Four Zoas, J. D. Salinger, King Lear, Laurence Sterne, names, To Esme with Love and Squalor, William Blake, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Midwife, No Doc, at Grandson’s Birth
My new grandson had the birth experience denied Tristram Shandy: one where a midwife was in charge.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Birth, Doctors, Enlightenment, Laurence Sterne, Medicine, midwives, Science Comments closed
Novels and Baseball Fans, Fixated on Time
As I watched the amazing day of baseball last Wednesday, I found myself thinking (being the literature nerd that I am) that the English novel was invented to do justice to reality when it got this dramatic and complex.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Baseball, Charles Dickens, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Lawrence Sterne, Robinson Crusoe, Sports, Tom Jones Comments closed
On Literary Names and Destinies
Reynold, “Portrait of Sterne” Just as I was born into a literary name, so were Darien and Toby. Before telling the story, I will follow up on the allusion in my last post to Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged fathers and sons, John Keats, Laurence Sterne, names, Tobias Smollett, Upon First Looking into Chapman's Homer Comments closed
