http://californiawithkids.com/tag/free-parking/ Of the odd things which George Orwell says about Mark Twain, to me the most remarkable is this: Mark Twain aimed at being something more than a chronicler of the Mississippi and the Gold Rush. In his own day he was famous all over the world as a humorist and comic lecturer. In New York, […]
Category Archives: Essays on Literature
The Humor and Relevance of Twain.
26-Mar-11Hannibal Without Mark Twain.
26-Mar-11http://thisisthewilderness.com/?sccss=1 From Cuivre River State Park I drove on up to Hannibal, Missouri. Mark Twain was born just outside town, and he spent his boyhood just up the block from the main intersection, where the road from the river landing crosses Main Street. The town is well-preserved, and Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn turn out to […]
On the Canon.
28-Sep-10Lindsay Johns has a little piece worth reading on the literary canon, arguing for its universal validity. The most striking passage: The dead white men never had to face the evils of slavery or the physical and emotional oppression of racism. Thus their minds were freer to range over the great philosophical questions, metaphysical quandaries […]
The beginning of this review by Rivka Galchen reads almost like a Borges faux-review short story. Her double-take writing does indeed make me do doubletakes. And much as I love Balzac I certainly never heard that story before.
I’m on volume six of Richard Burton’s sixteen-volume translation of the Arabian Nights. I intend to write a bit on this topic when I am done with the whole, but as that will be at a far-future date, I wish to set down some of my amazement with this work. The vast scope of the […]
From Dostoevsky.
25-Jun-10The conclusions of one of the revolutionaries in Demons: “I got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion directly contradicts the original idea I start out from. Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that apart from my solution to the social problem, there is no other.”
For the Feast of John the Baptist: this extremely good essay by Wendell Berry; highly recommended. Proof – as if it were needed – that the Magisterium of the Church resides not in the priesthood – which is almost always wrong – but in the Prophets. As it was, is now, and ever shall be. […]
A literal translation of the poem mentioned so often in The Brothers Karamazov, source of the phrase “sticky little leaves.” Translation by Stephen Boykewich. The cold winds are still blowing And carrying the morning frost. The first little flowers Have just appeared through the spring thaw holes, As though from some miraculous, waxy kingdom, The […]
Kerouac, the unideal husband.
11-Jun-10Kerouac’s first marriage: he married a girl and moved out to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and worked at his father-in-law’s ball-bearings factory. It lasted two months: At home Edie and her mother, anxious to see Jack as a competent husband, were alarmed that he spent most of his free time in the bathroom, reading Shakespeare and […]
The Embrace of Opposites.
24-Feb-11I was speaking with a friend about Rudyard Kipling, who is to most of the people I know (as to me) more of a familiar name than a familiar author. When I explained that his most famous work was probably The Jungle Book, and explained that it contained animal tales often told to children, my […]