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Where to start with Henry James
Henry James, of whom I presently, and with possibly the greatest literary joy of my life, have read anything and everything there is to read, is by far one of the best, most refined, most scandalously clever authors I have had the pleasure of reading. It is no secret by now, I am well aware,… Continue reading
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A Short Story: I watched Cain kill Abel
I had, simply, I suppose, been asked so many times to relay the story that, at some point, as the saying goes, the word had passed around. It was a journalist from The New Yorker who had approached me that grey, cold, rather sombre morning. I was still living in Brooklyn then, with my husband… Continue reading
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A Short Story: The day I went for a walk with Montaigne in a French village
It was around two years ago; I am sorry to confess I don’t remember the exact date (sometime in mid-July), when I, along with my mentor Michel de Montaigne, went for a contemplative walk in a small village some ten kilometres outside Bergerac. The village, which could be said to be more of a hamlet… Continue reading
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In Appreciation of Wallace Stevens’s Poetry
This summer I have spent in a rather mixed topography, from the picturesque, desolate, sunlit, arid deserts to the watery, mountainous, wooded landscape; from Texas to Copenhagen, from Vienna to Sweden — from Austin’s sprawling music scene to Enchanted Rock’s stone-spotted hills; to a red-coloured, two-storey cabin in the midst of the quiet, Swedish woods;… Continue reading
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Read Thoreau’s Walden before it is too late
While the title of this essay may come across as rather dystopic, I feel I can express it with no less urgency nor importance than now, as we are heading into the second quarter of the 21st century: Thoreau’s Walden seems more important than ever. If you are yet to read Walden; this fantastic, beautiful,… Continue reading
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Reflections on Goethe’s: Faust part 1 and Ibsen’s: Peer Gynt & A Doll’s House
The essays on this blog have, thus far, been singularly analytical in their approach as far as the works dissected, from Shakespeare to Dickinson, from Rabelais to Whitman, from Nabokov to Montaigne. However, as many of these essays take much time and effort, I have had in mind for some time posting (in between larger,… Continue reading
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Shakespeare’s King Lear, scene 1.1: Full commentary
The Tragedy of King Lear may very well be Shakespeare’s crowning achievement, and possibly the best play written in literary history. Personally, I am divided between King Lear and Hamlet, though in periods Othello and Macbeth will make their appearance, in periods Antony and Cleopatra or Measure for Measure. Even The Tempest, Twelfth Night or… Continue reading
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Dissecting Dickinson: My wheel is in the dark!
My wheel is in the dark!I cannot see a spokeYet I know its dripping feetGo round and round. My foot is on the Tide!An unfrequented road –Yet have all roadsA clearing at the end – Some have resigned the Loom –Some in the busy tombFind quaint employ – Some with new – stately feet –Pass… Continue reading
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The Walt Whitman series: Song of Myself. Part 1/3
Why Whitman’s Song of Myself? There is no poem like Song of Myself. Nowhere in literary history does one find such extraordinary originality, reinvention of language, and baffling aesthetic merit as in Song of Myself. Yet Whitman is still to this day both misunderstood and critically undervalued. This issue is part one of three that… Continue reading
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Defending The Western Canon, vol. I (Where we are headed)
It is a tragic realisation that most colleges and universities in the West have moved away from studying, inquiring into, and appreciating the importance and stunning beauty of the Western canon, which, after all, is the backbone of our society — our birth certificate, if you will. Instead, the oppression of our most significant authors… Continue reading
The Western Canon 