Tag: philosophy

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The Road by Vasily Grossman

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Best known for his novel Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman also wrote short stories and worked as a war correspondent in the Second World War.  A Ukrainian Jew with parents who worked as urban professionals, Grossman did not represent the common stereotype of the Eastern European Jew living in a “Litvak shtetl.”  The Road, a collection of short stories, journalism, and letters published by New York Review Books, provides a useful jumping off point for anyone interested in the life and work of Vasily Grossman.  It includes his earliest stories and his last short story he wrote.  “The Hell of … Continue reading The Road by Vasily Grossman

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Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard

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The appreciation of a novel can occasionally come down to something as random as timing.  When one reads a book too early or too late, one can miss important elements within the story.  This reviewer read Lord of the Rings too late and found its cod-archaic prose akin to downing a sedative.  Similarly, when reading Paradise Lost in middle school, the only thing gained was “bragging rights” since the poetry remained impenetrable.  All this represents a roundabout preface for my appreciation of Georgeann Packard’s novel Fall Asleep Forgetting. In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the inhabitants of … Continue reading Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard

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God by Alexander Waugh

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The premise of God is simple: write a book about the descriptions of God.  Alexander Waugh, son of columnist Auberon and grandson of satirist Evelyn, crafts a diminutive book exploring the attributes of God.  Mining a variety of sources, including different Bible translations, Gnostic, apocryphal, visionary, Jewish, Muslim and Mormon texts, Waugh offers the reader a multitude of perspectives on the topic.  The challenge comes from the traditionally held beliefs that God is invisible and immaterial.  Waugh leaps from one religious tradition to another, comparing and contrasting, occasionally dissecting a long-held truism with a satirist’s eye. The writing is crisp … Continue reading God by Alexander Waugh

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A Confession by Leo Tolstoy

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Near the end of his life, Count Leo Tolstoy wrote two lengthy essays on the topic of religion.  Hesperus Press includes these two essays, “A Confession” (1879 – 1882) and “What is Religion, and What Does its Essence Consist of?” (1902).  The edition includes a foreword by novelist and Orange Prize winner Helen Dunmore with an introduction by famed Tolstoy translator Tony Briggs. Tolstoy would revisit the religious theme in “Father Sergius” (written in 1890, published in 1898), an excruciatingly introspective tale of sensual temptation, religious duty, and personal mutilation.  With “A Confession” and “What is Religion?”, Tolstoy works within … Continue reading A Confession by Leo Tolstoy

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part III

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Reappropriation: Camp, Kitsch, and Sincerity “When something is just bad (rather than Camp), it’s often because it is too mediocre in its ambition.  The artist hasn’t attempted to do anything outlandish.” – “Notes on Camp” [1965], Susan Sontag “Need more clarification? To his fans Liberace was the epitome of cultured taste, but of course we know he was kitsch. However, unlike the not-quite-weird-enough musical stylings of ABBA, say, or the Village People, Liberace-style kitsch is so weird, so outré, that hipsters find it impossible to appropriate as cheese. Liberace didn’t make his work inappropriable on purpose; others, however, have. The … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part III

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part II

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Unpopularity as Popularity: or How to be a hipster. “Every aspect of hipster culture amounts to little more than an elaborate pissing contest.  …  Hipsters ignore rules because they think it will make them look like they don’t care. There is no end result, just a continuous cycle of mediocre indie rock and scruffy looking dudes. By basing their actions on avoiding the mainstream, they are in fact guided by the mainstream.” – “Cracked Topics: Hipster”, Cracked.com You’re not cool enough.  The bands you like aren’t unpopular enough. Hipsters, the annoying quasi-subculture, has its own uses and abuses of unpopularity. … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part II

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part I

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“In place of a hermeneutrics we need an erotics of art.” – “Against Interpretation” [1964], Susan Sontag Challenges and Non-Responses The job of the critic is, by turns, tastemaker, evangelist, and champion.  The best critics harness the powers of intellection and enthusiasm to inform his or her readership on a work’s merits.  If a work receives more merits than demerits, than, in a roughly mathematical fashion, the creator obtains a “good review.”  This reviewer finds works with “mixed reviews” or polarizing reactions (see Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones) most attractive, since “mixed reviews” are not sure things.  A tiny element … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part I

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Essays on Capital, First Series: Essay Number Zero

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By way of an introduction … “It is simply misleading and vulgar to say of Marx, as Edmund Wilson in To the Finland Station and many others have done, that he was really a latter-day prophet[.]” – “Piety without content,” Susan Sontag [1961] “Marx’s thought marks a watershed.  Its roots reach back to Joachim of Fiore and further, to the inspired utterances of the Old Testament prophets.” – Reasons for Our Rhymes: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of History, R. A. Herrera [2001] “Better dead than Red.” – Anti-communist saying [c. 1950s] Karl Marx is a controversial, misunderstood, and often … Continue reading Essays on Capital, First Series: Essay Number Zero

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On Love (1822) by Stendahl

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Poised between artifice and authentic emotionalism, Stendahl’s On Love explores the topic of love, combining the rational and the romantic.  The stylistic balance fits the personality of Stendahl, the nom de plume of Henri-Marie Beyle.  The short work combines analytical passages and excerpts from the dairy of Salviati, another guise Stendahl uses to investigate the concept of love. The accretion of different personae, pseudonyms of pseudonyms, creates a fascinating literary product.  The book’s genesis can be traced back to a rebuff Stendahl received from Matilde Dembowski, “the aristocratic young wife of a Polish officer” Sophie Lewis says in the Introduction … Continue reading On Love (1822) by Stendahl

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Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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Marilynne Robinson is not a prolific author, but like fellow slow writers Thomas Pynchon and Alexander Theroux, each of her novels is a finely hewn literary masterpiece.  Gilead reveals literature at its finest.  Taking the form of letters written to his young son, Reverend John Ames, an old man approaching the twilight of his years, writes about God, history, fathers and sons, and life.  According to the summary on the dust jacket, the year is 1956.  Past and present commingle as Ames remembers his early life, including his father the pacifist and his grandfather, the fiery visionary abolitionist.  Father and … Continue reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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