Many thanks to Michael Wooff for translating this short story and making it available at Project Gutenberg. It’s a wonderful piece that hints at what we will see in later works by Galdós. Published in 1871, “The Novel on the Tram” is close in tone and style to Galdós’ first novel The Shadow. The story […]
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know from my reading projects on Herodotus’ Histories, Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War, and Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander that I am a huge fan of The Landmark Ancient Histories series. As I noted in a post last August, a quote from editor Robert Stassler on an […]
Jean Barois by Roger Martin du Gard Translated by Stuart Gilbert Viking Press, 1949 (original publication in 1913)I picked up The Thibaults a couple of years of years ago, but haven’t been able to commit to the almost-two thousand page work. Jean Barois ended up being my introduction to Roger Martin du Gard instead. I […]
I’m updating this post because of Grant Hart’s recent death. My range of focus online has narrowed quite a bit, but I was surprised how little I saw about this as it was happening. What he contributed to me is difficult to quantify, but I have to say the influence was substantial. I guess I […]
I wanted to recommend this article on Reginald Foster, “The Vatican’s Latinist,” by John Byron Kuhner. Foster was “part of a small team of scribes who composed the pope’s correspondence, translated his encyclicals, and wrote copy for internal church documents” for over forty years. He has done so much more, though. He also taught Latin […]
I recently saw that “Firing Line” now has a channel on YouTube. I’ve mentioned the episode on “The Southern Imagination” a few times, with Eudora Welty and Walker Percy, and it is available here. A different episode I wanted to share was the conversation with Jorge Luis Borges, recorded on February 1, 1977. If you’re […]
Last night my son was watching Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage while I was fixing dinner. At one point I asked him to repeat a scene: “Did I just see Geddy Lee reading Faulkner?” Yes. Yes I did. Update: A few blogs I found that feature books on the screen Cinematic Literature People reading in […]
There was a flurry of news last week celebrating the 30th anniversary of U2’s The Joshua Tree, and it brought back a fond memory I’ve always associated with the album. I hope you’ll indulge this onion-on-my-belt moment… The weekend after the album was released, I caught a flight to spend a weekend with my brother. […]
I hope to post soon on some of the books I’ve read over the past few months. I can’t make any promises, but I really want to relay a few comments on some of the better ones. Much depends on…well, a lot of things, not the least on some follow-up surgeries to help relieve the […]
Well, not Twain himself, but the mullets he ascribed to nobility in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, that is… About bedtime I took the king to my private quarters to cut his hair and help him get the hang of the lowly raiment he was to wear. The high classes wore their hair […]