Literature
Country Mouse and Town Mouse
I’m about three-quarters of the way through Joseph J. Ellis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Founding Brothers, and it occurred to me this morning that the political and ideological divide between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is one that, as a country, we’re still struggling to overcome. For those of you that may have forgotten your American […]
Wanted for Rape: Prince Charming
Tracy Clark-Flory has written an interesting article over at Salon.com. In the article, Clark-Flory contemplates the difference between women reading/watching romance and men watching pornography (Yes, I know that porn is not the exclusive domain of men. However, romance novels, by and large, are consumed by women.) Clark-Flory comes to the exact same conclusion that […]
Poetry Pinhead
As a student of english literature, I’ve always had a hard time with poetry. There are a handful of poets that I like, and who I will read for pleasure, but for the most part the majority of the poetry I’ve read and am knowledgeable about is the product of my education. Poetry, and especially […]
Humbug
One of the last words I’d use to describe myself would be “giddy.” But today, when I checked my mail, I did in fact feel giddy. I hopped up and down with gleeful jubilation. I even shrieked a little. No, it wasn’t because I got the current edition of Entertainment Weekly, which I did, but […]
Relating The Ways Of The Intolerant To My Readers
Just as a short preface to this post, I think I should mention that I’ve edited and rewritten part of this several times since I first mentioned the topic. First off, I’ve been busy, and I simply haven’t had the motivation nor the mental strength to post. Secondly, at Halloween a reader of this blog, […]
Preparing Soapbox
I’ve received several indigent e-mail forwards about the new film “The Golden Compass,” each of which call for a boycott of the film. I’ve never read the books on which the film is based, but apparently the author, Philip Pullman, is an atheist, and an atheistic ideology informs the plot of the books. Incidentally, the […]
We Have A Winnah!
For our reading group we’ll read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. From the wiki entry for the book: Never Let Me Go is a 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize and for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Time Magazine named it the best fiction novel of […]
Symbolism
In regards to the symbolism in the film “Pan’s Labyrinth,” director Guillermo del Toro states during his commentary track on the DVD that, “Symbols cannot be closed to a single meaning, because if so the symbol becomes a cypher, and the tale become an equation of exact value.” del Toro means that symbols are subject […]
Reading List
I’ve chosen seven books as candidates for our upcoming reading group. There wasn’t any particular criteria I used in selecting these candidates, but I did intentionally stay within the latter half of the twentieth century for two particular reasons: 1) For our first book I want a text that is more fun than challenging. 2) […]
Reading Proposal
One of the things that I miss most about taking literature classes is the chance to enter into a dialogue with fellow readers about great literature. Most people think of reading as an isolated endeavour; a hunched and pathetic figure poring over a novel alone in a poorly lit room, but nothing could be further […]