Category Archives: Literature

Open thread on Malcolm’s The Journalist and The Murderer?

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Brian

I hope this can be a post where the two of us writers can share some thoughts (and, through dialogue, develop some thoughts) about the Janet Malcolm text The Journalist and The Murderer.  After Ian first blogged about the book … Continue reading →

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A shame that Ellroy won’t tip his hat to a good shamus

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Brian

I was just looking again at Ian’s post of July 20 on this blog.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that James Ellroy’s criticism of Raymond Chandler is frivolous, and is based purely on Ellroy’s … Continue reading →

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David Foster Wallace on David Lynch

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Brian

There’s a fine interview of David Foster Wallace on the Charlie Rose Show of 3/27/97.  This is a transcript of a section in which they discuss the work of David Lynch and the notion of the “Lynchian.” DFW: What Lynchian … Continue reading →

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A well-phrased dig

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Ian

From Grant Gilmore’s 1974 Storrs lectures at Yale, in reference to a 19th-century dean of Harvard Law School: “Langdell seems to have been an essentially stupid man who, early in his life, hit on one great idea to which, thereafter, … Continue reading →

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What Woolf’s ‘The Waves’ Says About Anders Behring Breivik

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Ian

Brian– Your mention of the Norway attacks reminds me of something I’d meant to post a while ago. I finished Virginia Woolf’s The Waves just a few days before I was called over to Oslo. I was very much taken … Continue reading →

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Naphtha beguiles

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Ian

In his poem “Naphtha,” Frank O’Hara catalogs the 20th century from the perspective of the mid-century. (I’m not sure exactly when the poem was written; O’Hara died in 1966, so sometime in the 1950s or 1960s.) It’s a century of … Continue reading →

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Shamus, shammes, Seamus

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Ian

By my silence lately, dear reader, if you exist, you might have concluded that I’d run afoul of some Providence mobster, that I’d been whacked, rubbed out, offed. And where would that have left us? I think it was Aristotle … Continue reading →

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Another guest post by Jean Cocteau

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Brian

At the age when Christ began with death Alexander died of a surfeit of glory. I imagine him, in despair, wondering sadly what he could still possess. One would like to reply: America, an aeroplane, a watch, a gramophone, the … Continue reading →

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Thoughts on The Tempest: For several reasons have I liked several women

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Brian

Consider the plight of Prospero.  He has magic at his disposal. He has a small army of spirits under his command, led by the great Ariel.  He can will weather disturbances into being.  On his island he is master of … Continue reading →

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Measuring MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Brian

I have been thinking about Measure for Measure a great deal in the last month. It is a nettlesome drama to blog about because its themes are well suited to a 2k-5k word essay, but are less well suited to … Continue reading →

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