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Robinson Crusoe first edition (1719) Picture sourceA story can be so firmly cemented as a cultural touchstone that you think you know it without having ever read it. Part of my interest in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe comes from wanting to see what is consistent and what is different from my expectations. I was planning […]
Convergence combines career advice with commercial fiction in a novel about 4 young scientists striving for academic success. Each journey takes many twists and turns as these researchers make significant discoveries, under impossible conditions, while dealing with unscrupulous colleagues. To keep their careers alive, however, they are in the end forced to consider something that […]
George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (1795)Picture source Yet another history book…one I’ve intended to read since its release… Joseph J. Ellis’ biography on George Washington weighs in at around 275 pages, which is a change from recent (literally) weighty tomes on the founding fathers. Ellis keeps the work shorter by summarizing surrounding historical details, going […]
A street artist portraying Unamuno, Barcelona, 2006 Photograph by luna (follow the source link for more pictures) Picture sourceI didn’t provide any online resources for Unamuno or Mist, but hopefully I’ll get to more of his works soon and can do so at that time. Links for posts related to Mist: Mist discussion Quotes from […]
I don’t feel too bad “giving away” the ending or the plot twist in previous posts since Unamuno talks of Augusto’s death in the Prologue as well as begins the author’s playful take on the blurring fiction and reality. Unamuno has one of his characters (Victor Goti) write the Prologue, which allows the author to […]
The character Augusto Pérez, upon feeling suicidal, visits author Miguel de Unamuno: ”Very well, then. The truth is, my dear Augusto,” I spoke to him the softest of tones, “you can’t kill yourself because you are not alive; and you are not alive—or dead either—because you do not exist.” “I don’t exist! What do you […]
I have made a few posts on nonfiction I’ve read this year (The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss and A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro), and thought I would add a few more nonfiction books I’ve enjoyed recently. The biggest joy has been rediscovering Barbara Tuchman. I received A […]
In which I give away the ending and hint at a major plot twist in Mist: And I even suspect that while I have been explaining and commenting this Life of Don Quixote, I have secretly been visited by the two of them, and that without my being aware of it they have unfolded and […]
How do we face life’s seemingly insurmountable problems? For Stephen Monroe, an unsuccessfully self-employed typesetter still in love with his ex-wife, Mary, the only acceptable thing to do is to hang in there and fight — for love, for what he believes in, and for the voice inside him that’s struggling to be heard. With […]
When twelve-year old Jule runs away from home in search of a mystical goatherding vagabond, he is unprepared for life on the backroads of Georgia. Jule must confront a strange menagerie of adults, from the pathetic to the comic to the depraved, and shield a young girl from the depradations of harsh life in the […]
Officially declaring myself overwhelmed, I’m changing plans for August and will read some ebooks I’ve been wanting to tackle. I’ve downloaded three that should help me get through everything. The first two aren’t too long so I should have something up on them soon. I’m impressed with the quality of output from the self-publishing firms […]
Between work (the joys of a start-up), home (fortunately everyone survived a camping weekend in one piece–each), and now having to completely reinstall everything on my computer I’m way behind on everything. My apologies for the lack of posts. Hopefully I’ll be back to a normal schedule soon…
and we won’t go into how soon it will be to see if she still needs / feeds / etc. me. A picture from a day I couldn’t stop smiling…
I had a long post on this, but I’ll shorten my comments on this viral video…brilliant on so many levels. One of my favorite songs, ever. And a book and movie that I couldn’t stand. Which is why laughing at it probably makes me enjoy it that much more. (Warning–simulated violence and sex.) I posted […]
Preparations for Hunt by Evgraf Krendovsky (1836) Picture sourceI come back to Turgenev’s own description of this book (which I quoted on the resources post): “Much has come out pale and scrappy, much is only just hinted at, some of it’s not — right, oversalted or undercooked — but there are other notes pitched exactly […]
A brief post on the last nine stories in (my version of) A Sportsman’s Notebook: “The Singers”, “Pyotr Petrovich Karataev”, “The Rendezvous”, “Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo”, “Chertopkhanov and Nedopyuskin”, “The End of Chertopkhanov”, “The Live Relic”, “The Knocking”, and “Forest and Steppe”. The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found […]
Landscape with Oaks by Alexey Savrasov (1850s) Picture sourceA brief post on the next nine stories in A Sportsman’s Notebook: “Bezhin Meadow”, “ Kasyan from Fair Springs”, “ The Bailiff”, “The Estate Office”, “The Bear”, “Two Landowners”, “Lebedyan”, “Tatyana Borisovna and Her Nephew”, and “Death”. The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook […]
Since I’m reading several of Turgenev’s works, I thought I would take a take a quick look at Reading Turgenev, the first half of William Trevor’s 1991 book Two Lives. For a brief editorial review and a good summary, see the Amazon.com product page—the May 19, 2000 review covers the book fairly well. While the […]
There is July, and then there is Turgenev’s July. Here is the wonderful and magical first paragraph of “Bezhin Meadow” (translation by Charles and Natasha Hepburn): It was a beautiful July day, one of those days which come only after long spells of settled weather. From the earliest morning the sky is clear; the dawn […]
The Overgrown Pond by Valentin Serov (1888) Picture sourceA brief discussion covering the first seven of the “sketches”: Khor and Kalinich, Ermolai and the Miller’s Wife, Raspberry Water, The Country Doctor, My Neighbor Radilov, Ovsyanikov the Freeholder, Lgov. The text and other links related to A Sportsman’s Notebook can be found here. All quotes are […]