Monthly Archives: May 2015
Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes: Life – and Sometimes Literature – is an Illusion
“Repetition of the same patterns, they say, provides an effective form of protective coloring. If he were to melt into a life of simple repetition, there might possibly come a time when they could be quite unconscious of him” – … Continue reading
Peter Taylor and the Cost of Being Southern: A Summons to Memphis
Like other Southern writers of his generation (Walker Percy and Shelby Foote come immediately to mind), Peter Taylor explores the lives of upper class Southerners searching for some clue to unlock the terrible allegiances Southerners of a certain background feel … Continue reading
Book Review: Derail this Train Wreck by Daniel Forbes
What Forbes is after is not easily achieved: he seeks to portray both a society in crisis and the life of a person who, in crisis himself, still strives to draw public attention to the social crisis in hopes of … Continue reading
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey: Good Enough…
Catherine Morland is like most adolescents: too certain about what (she thinks) she knows, too uncertain about what she knows (she thinks) she doesn’t. Her negotiation of coming of age is about learning to manage both what she knows and … Continue reading
Jose Saramago: Baltasar, Blimunda, and The Flight to Happiness
“…the longer you live the more you will realize that the world is like a great shadow pervading our hearts. That is why the world seems so empty and eventually becomes unbearable.” – José Saramago, Baltasar and Blimunda After taking … Continue reading
The Reading and Writing Doldrums…
Even the most avid reader, and the most dedicated writer, and I think I qualify as both, occasionally hits the doldrums – whether from a slow book, personal distractions, or the impositions of silly stuff like work… I am still … Continue reading
Rediscovered Twain Stories and the real Mr. Darcy: Scholarship and Smoke and Mirrors
Scholarly inquiry is often like panning for gold: patient tedium yielding the occasional nugget. Then again, sometimes it yields to the temper of the times and decides to hype the discovery of iron pyrite. That fount of all that is worth knowing in … Continue reading
The Blues Boy…
“Muddy Waters was born near Rolling Fork, Mississippi. And to me he’s a Mississippi person that went to Chicago and play[ed]. John Lee Hooker was born in Mississippi and went to Detroit. B.B. King was born in Mississippi and went … Continue reading
The New Southern Gentleman 