In his Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined a novel as “a short story padded.” This is an all too apt description. The inability to prune a story to its essential story is an unfortunate quality shared by many modern writers and the primary reason that bookshelves are filled with . . . . Continue Reading »
Some thoughts on temperance inspired by a student paper on the Faerie Queene , Book 2. The student cited an article linking Guyon’s story with the developing “modern” view of time as a commodity. With the new view of time, temperance began to be linked with . . . . Continue Reading »
From Richard Wilbur’s “Lying”: In the strict sense, of course, We invent nothing, merely bearing witness To what each morning brings again to light: Gold crosses, cornices, astonishment Of panes, the turbine-vent which natural law Spins on the grill-end of the diner’s roof, . . . . Continue Reading »
From Nabokov’s lectures on literature, quoted in Smith’s book: “All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic relight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind . . . . Continue Reading »
Noel Carroll argues that anti-intentionalist structuralist criticism aims to maximize aesthetic enjoyment, at the expense of all other purposes of art and literature. This, he argues, “has a very ‘consumerist’ ring to it. In Buberesque lingo, it reduces our relation to . . . . Continue Reading »
In case you got bogged down and missed the plot, Thornton Wilder helpfully summarizes what he describes as Joyce’s “Night Book”: “We overhear and oversee [the hero] in bed above his tavern at the edge of Dublin. His conscience is trying him for some obscure . . . . Continue Reading »
Did Jane Austen want people to read and admire her work? Of course; she was a writer. Did she like making money from writing? Yes. She wasn’t the wispy angel that her family biographers tried to make her out to be. To this extent Claire Harman ( Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered . . . . Continue Reading »
James Gardner captures the eccentricity, flaws, and brilliance of George Steiner in a short piece in the June 15 issue of the Weekly Standard . His weaknesses are manifest - Steiner is “an unapologetic know-it-all and acrobatic show-off” given to “incessant posturings in . . . . Continue Reading »
A. N. Wilson has recently returned to Christianity. He’s asked in an interview, “What’s the worst thing about being faithless?” “The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception . . . . Continue Reading »
Christensen quotes this stunning paragraph from Phillips, where a character muses on the dice-roll of artistic success: “Two months ago, she was raw and unblended; tonight she was reasonably effective; someday very soon she would be in danger of marbling over into a slick cast impression of . . . . Continue Reading »
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