Careers have been built on mining the depths of The Great Gatsby, that most iconic of American novels. I recently read it for the third time to see what I could learn about the craft of writing. I decided to stay close … Continue reading
You don’t expect much drama from anthropologists in the jungle, but the members of this trio divide their angst between their simmering and barely acknowledged love triangle and their understanding of pre-industrial river people of New Guinea in the 1930’s. The … Continue reading
This is the autobiographical story of a holocaust survivor, Hungarian writer and Nobel Prize-winner, Imre Kertesz. To me, it is reminiscent of Primo Levi and even Victor Frankl. A boy of fourteen is snatched from Budapest by the Nazis and … Continue reading
The title suggests a historical novel, for the Middle Passage was the sea route used by slavers going from West Africa to the Caribbean. The book does invoke important aspects of the slave trade, life at sea in the 1830’s, … Continue reading
I know I am in the minority for this much-beloved book. It just didn’t work for me. Set in India in the 1970’s and beyond, a brother and sister, twins in an affluent family, seek love in life, as we … Continue reading
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is famous for cribbing the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The ‘king’ (Edgar’s father) is murdered by his brother Claude (Claudius) who then beds the father’s wife, Trudy (Gertrude). Edgar is the half-mad prince who accidentally … Continue reading
The title refers to Matthew-13 of the Christian Bible, a parable in which a sower scatters seeds indiscriminately. Some grow, some don’t, depending on where they fall. A preacher (e.g., Jesus) is analogous to the sower; sometimes his words fall … Continue reading
If you appreciate Chinese culture and the wrenching changes it endured in the twentieth century, this book has more meaning and significance. At face value, the story is about a country doctor working in the army who has an arranged marriage … Continue reading
Rules of Civility is perfection in world-building, the art of constructing a believable and engrossing fictional world for the characters to inhabit. Nineteen-thirties Manhattan is long gone but Towles brings it back to glittering life and that is the main … Continue reading
You must be a fan of fine writing to persevere with Smile, Roddy Doyle’s latest, because no genuine drama is apparent, except for the closing scene, which is deus ex machina hogwash. Actually, not even that. At least that classic ending … Continue reading