G. Keller’s “The Little Dance Legend” is a quizzical story about Musa, a dancer among the saints whose dance and pagan art led to expulsion from the heavenly host.
Continue reading...On Literature, Books
“Beyond the Pale”: The Repressed Returns
William Trevor’s “Beyond the Pale” tells of four friends visiting an idyllic Irish island, on the occasion of the return of the idyll’s history, dramatically so.
Continue reading...Ginzburg’s “The Mother”: Recollections Partial and Fleeting
Natalia Ginzburg’s “The Mother” is a story about a “mother” from the perspective of her two boys who receive from her little in the way of mothering.
Continue reading...Hoffman’s “Don Juan”: The Mysterious Visitation
Hoffmann’s “Don Juan” is a theatre review written as a short story, bound to enlighten lovers of Don Giovanni and mystify everyone else.
Continue reading...“An Unexpected Reunion”: Death’s Dominion Disturbed
In Johann Peter Hebel’s “An Unexpected Reunion” death seems to separate a betrothed couple, but after the passing of much time they are peculiarly reunited.
Continue reading...Goethe’s Hymn to Virtue: “The Attorney”
Goethe’s “The Attorney” shows that though habit and nature are not easily conquered, the powers of the sovereign will as it realizes virtue are possibly without equal.
Continue reading...“The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling”: Writing on Trial
Writing explores writing in Ted Chiang’s “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” in a story constructed of two different stories, the one of which bears a self-conscious narrator and the other lacking.
Continue reading...‘Tis Short Story Month
During this lovely autumn month I will read a new short story each day and then write a brief post about the story. A different author each day.
Continue reading...George Saunders’ “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline”
George Saunders’ short story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was born in a minimum security prison in central Pennysylvania
Continue reading...Reading Slowly: “War and Peace”
Why reading slowly, especially War and Peace, should be practiced with solicitude, so as to fully appreciate the journey reading is.
Continue reading...Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the Archbishop”
A novel of religious devotion genuinely spiritual without falling into the mirthless repetition of ecclesiastical doctrine
Continue reading...Notes on Lampedusa’s novel “The Leopard”
Idle reflections on The Leopard, by Giuseppe de Lampedusa, which narrates several events in the life and afterlife of a 19th-century Sicilian noble
Continue reading...Krasnahorkai’s “The Last Wolf”
A reading journal entry on Lázló Krasnahorkai’s “book” The Last Wolf, which is really two small books.
Continue reading...Captivating corruption: Single sentence exegesis
Single sentence exegesis.
Continue reading...William H. Gass’ “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country”
Reflections on the short story collection In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H. Gass
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