Monthly Archives: April 2009

It Is Changed Into Something Transcendent

After weeks of avoiding buying new books, I finally succumbed to the temptation to splurge on paper backs today. Was it the book I had at hand? I was still in chapter one and an English couple were discussing how

It Is Changed Into Something Transcendent

After weeks of avoiding buying new books, I finally succumbed to the temptation to splurge on paper backs today. Was it the book I had at hand? I was still in chapter one and an English couple were discussing how

The Original Gossip Girl

That Katherine Mansfield, one of the initiators of the modern short story, was from New Zealand is quite a stroke of luck. That would mean I’ll be having two entries (the other is Torgny Lindgren’s The Way of a Serpent)

The Original Gossip Girl

That Katherine Mansfield, one of the initiators of the modern short story, was from New Zealand is quite a stroke of luck. That would mean I’ll be having two entries (the other is Torgny Lindgren’s The Way of a Serpent)

The Way of a Serpent | Torgny Lindgren

In My Flesh Shall I See God

O Lord, was it him, Karl Orsa the farmer and shopkeeper, you wanted to bury that time when you tore apart Slough Hill like that, or was it me and my house and Johanna? And the children who had not

The Way of a Serpent | Torgny Lindgren

In My Flesh Shall I See God

O Lord, was it him, Karl Orsa the farmer and shopkeeper, you wanted to bury that time when you tore apart Slough Hill like that, or was it me and my house and Johanna? And the children who had not

Solomon Gursky Was Here

Solomon Gursky Was Here

After all his years on the rivers it finally struck him that he wasn’t the angler but the salmon. A teasing, gleeful Solomon casting the flies over his head, getting him to roll, rise, and dance his tail at will.

Solomon Gursky Was Here

Solomon Gursky Was Here

After all his years on the rivers it finally struck him that he wasn’t the angler but the salmon. A teasing, gleeful Solomon casting the flies over his head, getting him to roll, rise, and dance his tail at will.

Uniform Justice by Donna Leon

Uniform Justice

They have the morals of pit vipers. They’ll do anything to cover up for one another: lie, cheat, commit perjury. p. 123 Uniform Justice by Donna Leon is fast-paced, like any other novel of the same genre. I’ve read better

Uniform Justice by Donna Leon

Uniform Justice

They have the morals of pit vipers. They’ll do anything to cover up for one another: lie, cheat, commit perjury. p. 123 Uniform Justice by Donna Leon is fast-paced, like any other novel of the same genre. I’ve read better

Joseph Stalin

The Master and Margarita: A Stalinist Fantasy

Well, but with sorcery, as everyone knows, once it starts, there’s no stopping it. p. 103 Mikhail Bulgakov’s cult masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, one of the finest classics of 20th Century Russian literature, has not more than once been

Joseph Stalin

The Master and Margarita: A Stalinist Fantasy

Well, but with sorcery, as everyone knows, once it starts, there’s no stopping it. p. 103 Mikhail Bulgakov’s cult masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, one of the finest classics of 20th Century Russian literature, has not more than once been

Notes From Summer

Some notes from the first days of Summer: Gogol. Last April Fool’s Day was also the 200th birthday of the 19th Century Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, an event which reminds me to reread some of his works this month. Global

Notes From Summer

Some notes from the first days of Summer: Gogol. Last April Fool’s Day was also the 200th birthday of the 19th Century Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, an event which reminds me to reread some of his works this month. Global

marquis-of-o

The Marquise of O- and the Earthquake of Chile

In Richard Stokes’s introduction to The Marquis of O-, we are told that one of the turning points in Heinrich Von Kleist’s life was his reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. In fact, it was his lack of faith in

marquis-of-o

The Marquise of O- and the Earthquake of Chile

In Richard Stokes’s introduction to The Marquis of O-, we are told that one of the turning points in Heinrich Von Kleist’s life was his reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. In fact, it was his lack of faith in