Books
Anyone who has sat through a commercial for one pill or another will recognize and acknowledge the satiric thrust of this enjoyable 1920’s French farce.
I have written another commentary for the Mass Humanities blog, The Public Humanist. It is a reaction, admiring but skeptical, to John Armstrong’s recent polemic IN SEARCH OF CIVILIZATION: REMAKING A TARNISHED IDEA.
Philppe Jaccottet is one of Europe’s most prolific and distinguished poets. This tome comprises selections from his later works, the bulk of which are prose poems whose urgency reflect a heightened awareness of death.
Perhaps the novel is not the most original read, but AN ACCIDENT IN AUGUST contributes to the growing number of literary meditations on the evolving pathology of celebrity,
There is no question that somewhere in this collection poet Daniel Borztuzky is drawing a parallel between bureaucrats and terrorists, between politicians and increasingly dehumanized societies—both in America and abroad—but the connections are like underground cables: I can only guess at where I might dig to uncover them.
Multiple Google searches suggest that no one is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the second of Ben Jonson’s tragedies. I don’t think I will live to see a production of CATILINE, but attention should be paid to this awkward but powerful script. Filled with moral strength, perceptive realpolitik, and rich poetry, it proffers a brilliant serio-comic meditation on political gangsterism.
Originally published in 1963, and today considered by some critics a landmark in twentieth century Italian literature, in English Luigi Meneghello’s memoir feels more like a duty than a delight to read.
What I do suspect though, and find evidence for in BLOODLUST is that Freud is immune to any final dispatch or disproof, and will likely, through one portal or another, go on reinserting himself into our culture.
For everyone who feels the attraction but lacks the study, THE WORD EXCHANGE is a huge gift. It’s the most generous sampling I’ve seen of poetry translated from Old English and collected in one volume.
There is an almost Biblical resonance of utter destruction and an improbable, fervid humor in the prose of ANIMALINSIDE as the beast speaks directly to us, its voice moving between trapped panic, cunning hunger, and a vicious savagery.
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