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Edmund Kean by James Northcote (1819) Picture source at the National Portrait GalleryEdmund Kean (1787 – 1833), an English actor noted for his leading roles in Shakespeare, was as famous for his personal life as for his professional one. His messy divorce, many affairs, adultery trial, and riotous excesses were fodder for gossip. His stage […]
A link to my post on the novel IMDb.com link From The New York Times: a review of the movie and an article on Kertész and the movie (both of which I’ll reference in the post) Since I posted so much about the book in the link above I’ll try and keep this post short. […]
“But who can judge what is possible or believable in a concentration camp? Who could explore, exhaust all those countless ideas, inventions, games, jokes, and ponderable theories, which are easily accessible and transferable from a make-believe world of fantasy into a concentration-camp reality? You couldn’t, even if you mustered the totality of your knowledge.” (148) […]
This 2008 TV miniseries covers parts of the English Civil War, using the fictional Angelica Fanshawe and historical Edward Sexby as focal points (although there is some historical basis for her character). Peter Flannery wrote the screenplay. Parts of the series are cartoonish and skip over major events, but overall I enjoyed it. I wish […]
So I went the WorldCat route in trying to obtain a copy of the BBC performance of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Kean” with Anthony Hopkins in the title role. There are only two libraries listed with copies and neither loan audio-visual material. So I’m out of luck with that approach. If anyone has a copy or knows […]
Here’s an excerpt from The Paris Review’s interview with Imre Kertész. One quote from it: To me, there were three phases, in a literary sense. The first phase is the one just before the Holocaust. Times were tough, but you could get through somehow. The second phase, described by writers like Primo Levi, takes place […]
Or an update to the state of the blog. So I think by announcing a November read-along it’s clear I plan on continuing the blog. I needed some time away (despite erratic posting) to think about what I wanted to do with the blog. There were many issues leading to the earlier post on continuing […]
I’ve been reading Truth’s Ragged Edge: The Rise of the American Novel by Philip F. Gura and while it’s been enjoyable (more posts on that later) it has highlighted a huge gap in my reading. For anyone interested in the topic I highly recommend it, and for a taste of it go to one of […]
The summer issue of The Paris Review will be out soon (according to this announcement). While there are several interesting articles/reviews/interviews mentioned, the one that caught my eye was an interview (supposedly the last one he’ll give) with Imre Kertész. I just started reading Fateless and needless to say I’m impressed. From the teaser in […]
Director André Klotzel successfully keeps the playful nature of Machado de Assis’ novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas in this 2001 movie (IMDb.com page). The movie plays off the abundant irony in the book, touching on many of the same subjects. While it avoids the literary references that provide depth to the novel, Klotzel […]