In August of 1634, a French Catholic priest, Urbain Grandier, was tortured and burned at the stake, accused of ensorcelling an entire convent of Ursuline nuns. Few of the locals, including those who witnessed his body burn, gave much credence […]
John Gardner’s The Art Of Fiction
by on July 11, 2019
The book I am now reviewing, a classic how-to manual for writers, began its life with a much smaller circulation, first among John Gardner’s writing students, and later among a slightly larger community of writers and writing instructors, who affectionately […]
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
by on July 6, 2019
Yet again, my prejudices have been overturned. I have avoided Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest since high school, after dozens of bland book reports – no doubt more based on the film than the novel – gave […]
Marcel Proust’s Pleasures And Regrets
by on June 29, 2019
Proust is one of the many famous writers more invoked than read (a glance at the 4,200-odd pages of In Search of Lost Time goes a long way to explaining why), and yet somehow he cannot be approached fresh. Noviciates […]
Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
by on June 27, 2019
Consider, for a moment, the place that the Holocaust occupies in our collective memory. The mere mention of the word conjures in our minds death camps and gas chambers, emaciated corpses and living skeletons starved for food. No single event […]
Robert Conquest’s The Harvest Of Sorrow
by on June 21, 2019
For a brief moment, in 1917, the Russian peasantry could be optimistic about its future. With the overthrow of the tsar, Russia’s large estates were seized by peasant farmers: “108 million acres were taken from 110,000 landlords,” to the point […]
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons
by on June 14, 2019
In university and in the many years since my graduation, I have had the repeated and uncomfortable experience of encountering human beings incapable of uttering an original thought. Otherwise intelligent, rational people, once confronted with a given political or philosophical […]
Virginia Woolf’s The Moment And Other Essays
by on May 30, 2019
In the last three or four years of trawling used book stores, estate sales and library fundraisers, no single find has been more felicitous than a complete set of Virginia Woolf’s essays, in such pristine condition as if they had […]
Clarice Lispector’s Complete Stories
by on May 26, 2019
Not even five years ago now, the name of Clarice Lispector was everywhere. A new biography and English translations of her most popular works were rescuing her from a provincial obscurity her talent was always destined to transcend, finding her […]
Russell Kirk’s The Roots Of American Order
by on May 22, 2019
Conservative philosopher Russell Kirk’s opus on American “order” appeared in 1974, a year of remarkable disorder: Vietnam divided the nation, university protests disrupted classes and frequently drew the attentions of the National Guard, and Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. The […]