Category: Literary Matters
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The Self-Reliant Don’t Snivel
Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man, Bantam, 1989, p. 180: Times were often very rough for me but I can honestly say that I never felt abused or put-upon. I never felt, as some have, that I deserved special treatment from life, and I do not recall ever complaining that things were not better.…
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Catholicism as a Literary Affair?
William Giraldi in Commonweal: Because I want nothing to do with hocus-pocus, because dogma and decrees are closed to real contest, and because corporations make me glum (the Vatican is, among other things, a corporation), Catholicism is for me a literary affair: drama, poetry, myth, tradition. Homilies and hymnals, liturgies and sermons done right, the Benedictus,…
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Cactus Ed on Sweet Gone Jack
Here: Some of Abbey's most entertaining letters involve skirmishes over literary reputation, one of his enduring obsessions. In a letter to the Nation, he contrasted Kurt Vonnegut's "concern for justice, love, honesty and hope" with "novels about the ethnic introspection project (Roth, Bellow)" and "the miseries of suburban hanky-panky (Updike, Cheever, Irving)." He disparaged Jack…
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James Soriano, The Sin of Silence
Yesterday I quoted Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State (1997-2001) in the Clinton Administration: "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." The context was Albright's urging of women to vote for a woman, Hillary Clinton. This just in from James Soriano, "a retired Foreign Service Officer who spent three decades in the…
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Some 19th Century Rules for Social Intercourse
The wise man abstains from an excess of socializing as from an excess of whisky; but just as a little whisky at the right time and in the right place is a delightful adjunct to a civilized life, so too is a bit of socializing. But he who quits his solitude to sally forth among…
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Of Trump and The Tempest
Roger Kimball: I suspect that, come 2024, when President Trump completes his second successful term, Americans will indeed look back, but to the election of Barack Obama and the prospect of a second President Clinton in 2016. They will then wonder how they could have been so misguided as to have elected a naive, anti-American…
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Cesare Pavese, “Passion for Solitude”
Passion for Solitude BY CESARE PAVESE TRANSLATED BY GEOFFREY BROCK I’m eating a little supper by the bright window. The room’s already dark, the sky’s starting to turn. Outside my door, the quiet roads lead, after a short walk, to open fields. I’m eating, watching the sky—who knows how many women are eating now. My body…
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Czeslaw Milosz on Lev Shestov
Shestov, or the Purity of Despair
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Gray Flannel and the Matter of Money
Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit appeared in 1955 two years before Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I never finished Gray Flannel, getting only 80 or so pages into it. It's a book as staid as the '50s, a tad boring, conventional, and forgettable in comparison to the hyper-romantic and heart-felt rush of the unforgettable On the…
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Patrick Kurp on Whittaker Chambers
I am pleased to note that Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence appreciates the high literary merit of Whittaker Chambers. He has Witness on his list of favorite books. Mr. Kurp's Chambers entries are collected here. Related articles Whittaker Chambers on Beethoven 'Witness' by Whittacker Chambers – RussiaKnowledge – The Reading Experience
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Shakespeare on the Fire Down Below
My favorite Oregonian luthier, Dave Bagwill, sends this for our delectation: PROSPERO (to FERDINAND) Look thou be true. Do not give dalliance Too much the rein. The strongest oaths are straw To th' fire i' th' blood. Be more abstemious, Or else, goodnight your vow. The Tempest, Act 4, Sc. 1 Dave's emphasis. Bob Seger expatiates…
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Time Was . . .
. . . when I had space for books, but no money. Now it's the other way around. So I allowed myself only two purchases today at the antiquarian Mesa Bookshop in downtown Mesa, Arizona, Gary Wills' slim volume, Saint Augustine, Viking 1999, and Joseph Agassi's Faraday as Natural Philosopher, University of Chicago Press, 1971. …
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Wonder Lost
I fanciulli trovano il tutto nel nulla, gli uomini il nulla nel tutto. The child finds everything in nothing; the man nothing in everything. And knocking back a couple or three Fanciulli cocktails won't help matters.
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False Expectation
He who expects all of life to be both wise and philosophical is neither. …………….. Modeled on Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837): Nessun maggior segno d'essere poco filosofo e poco savio, che volere savia e filosofica tutta la vita. There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to…
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Reading Now: Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
Undoubtedly the most Joycean of the booze novels. This is not what one could call a 'page turner.' Not suitable for beach or bed reading. But it looks to be a deep work that will repay the close attention it demands. Under the Volcano was originally published in 1947. Two other booze novels from the…