I ordered the book from the library after reading a quotation from it somewhere on the internet. I don’t remember my source, which is probably just as well; I had also heard the author mentioned favorably, and thought I might as well take a look.
The book arrived and, as usual, I judged it by its [...]
Boris Fishman, ed.
Wild East: Stories from the Last Frontier
2003
Now a reader is in a sense complicit in the making of a good book; without the reader’s empathy, wit, and understanding, be the book ever so finely written and ever so well put together, any book can be called rubbish. I myself remember the day, many [...]
snobbery
A sleepless night, drowsing over Samson Agonistes. Dalila dandled forth, almost more specious than Helen among the Trojan Women, and the blind man missing his apotheosis, but not heroization. And then there are certain beautiful infelicities; I hesitate to say Milton loses his tone, but perhaps he clings rather too fiercely:
Chorus. But we had best [...]
and other puzzles
At the end of March there was a puff piece about Anne Carson in the NY Times, occasioned by a staged reading of her translation of, I think, Euripides’ Hekabe.1 One short passage attracted my attention:
For all this, Ms. Carson said, she is not a poet. ‘Homer’s a poet,’ she said. ‘I would say I [...]
household exercises
a Turkish winter
ars academica
insidious
the perils of misspelling for young authors
lessons for masters
Volkswagens and other historical anecdotes
a suggestion
a philosophical expedition to Abissinia
or, the difficulties of being desired
with no sudden crisis of conscience
For no good reason1 I’ve been reading The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson (ed. W. Martin, CUP: 2002). It is somewhat refreshing to find books which do not concern Cicero. And it is interesting to step outside the charmed circle of academics and then to peer back in, as though through windows. For one can [...]
::
ego hoc feci mm–mmviii
© 2000–8 M.F.C.