The Bloodiest, Most Stomach-Turning Book You’ve Ever Read
“All of European literature springs from a fight,” says a Classics professor in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. He’s talking about Homer’s The Iliad, and what a nasty little story it is. A few lines from Book 4, during the first major battle scene between the Trojans and the Achians, offers a sanguine taste: Then fate fell upon … Continue reading
Murakami is odds-on favorite for the Nobel?
I have always been a fan of the eclectic and controversial Irish betting site Paddy Power, which let you bet on everything from the next pope to whether Moody’s would downgrade a country’s credit rating. But before today I had never heard of the equally novel betting site Ladbrokes. This British cousin is taking bets on … Continue reading
The Human Stain’s Rambling
In Philip Roth’s world, so much depends on the New York Times and the New York Review of Books. No Roth novel seems complete without some obsession with New York high culture, as dictated by these expiring icons. Only perhaps John Irving, our contemporary Dickens to Roth’s Stendhal, can write using the same half dozen tropes in every … Continue reading
New Novel: The Human Stain
Philip Roth is an author I never encountered or heard much about until after college. I think back on who I was exposed to during that time, the great authors who rose to prominence between the 60s and 90s: Updike, Garcia Marquez, Le Guin, Barth, Morrison, Doctorow, Eco, Naipaul, McCarthy, DeLillo, Irving, Rushdie… but never … Continue reading
High Tech, Low Life
John Updike (who we might be reading next with his famous Witches of Eastwick) once wrote some simple rules for reviewing a book. The first is the most important, really the only rule a critic needs: Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he … Continue reading
Letters Republic 