“Far-li-mas, therefore, was summoned. He appeared, and the king said: ‘The day has arrived when you must cheer me. Tell me a story.’ ‘The performance is quicker than the command,’ said Far-li-mas, and he began. The king listened to the story; the guests also listened. The king and his guests forgot to drink, forgot toContinue reading “What We Talk About When We Talk About Stories”
Tag Archives: Fiction
A Postmodern Eighteenth-Century Novel: Jacques the Fatalist
We tend to think of experimentation with form and meta-narratives that call attention to their artificiality as the exclusive traits of postmodernism. But if we glance in the rearview mirror of history, we can sometimes find works from the past that also employ these same storytelling strategies. Joe Bray suggests that the eighteenth century isContinue reading “A Postmodern Eighteenth-Century Novel: Jacques the Fatalist”
Shall I Project a World? A Meditation on The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon has a reputation as a difficult novelist. If we come to his fictions fresh from the tradition of American Naturalism, we may be lulled by their humorous, jokey tone into a belief that all is most conventional. The writer is obviously just poking a little fun, engaging in a bit of satire. WeContinue reading “Shall I Project a World? A Meditation on The Crying of Lot 49“
The Rhetorical Kingdom of E.R. Eddison
“But Juss answered and said, ‘Know that not for fame are we come on this journey. Our greatness already shadoweth all the world, as a great cedar tree spreading his shadow in a garden. But the great King of Witchland, practising in darkness in his royal palace of Carce such arts of grammarie and sendingsContinue reading “The Rhetorical Kingdom of E.R. Eddison”
A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o: A Review
In his first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn writes, “If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart ofContinue reading “A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o: A Review”
A Letter to Virginia Woolf On To the Lighthouse
Dear Virginia, For a long while, I’ve wanted to write to you to express my admiration and sheer delight in your novel To the Lighthouse. It’s a beautiful book that always seems fresh each time I open it. I can think of no better definition of a classic, and I hope you’ll not mind if IContinue reading “A Letter to Virginia Woolf On To the Lighthouse“
A Postcolonial Stranger: The Meursault Investigation
“My brother had to be seen through your hero’s eyes to become an ‘Arab’ and consequently die.” -Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation. Albert Camus’s The Stranger gained an almost mythical reputation early on as a classic text highlighting the alienation and meaninglessness of human existence. Like most of his works, the novel takes place in French Algeria. InContinue reading “A Postcolonial Stranger: The Meursault Investigation“
The Monster Under the Amusement Park: Arthur Miller’s Focus
In the opening of Arthur Miller’s Focus, Lawrence Newman awakens from a disturbing dream. “He was in some sort of amusement park. Before him stood a large carousel, strangely colored in green and purple patches. Somehow there were no people there. It was deserted for acres around him. And yet the carousel was moving. The brightlyContinue reading “The Monster Under the Amusement Park: Arthur Miller’s Focus“
Nihilism at the OK Corral: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
I grew up with The Story. We all know The Story, the Story of America. We might sum it up as follows. Fleeing from religious persecution, a band of hardy European colonists settled on the shores of the “New World” and eventually founded a great and noble nation. Because of their high ideals, the peopleContinue reading “Nihilism at the OK Corral: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian“
The 8 1/2 of Middlemarch
In 1962 Federico Fellini was trying to make a film about a man who suffers from a creative block. All he had were fragmentary images and a hazy notion of the story he wanted to tell. Frustrated and ready to quit, he suddenly struck upon an inspired idea. He decided to make a film aboutContinue reading “The 8 1/2 of Middlemarch“
Worlds Imagined 