Jason Lutes, Berlin
Berlin by Jason Lutes My rating: 3 of 5 stars For readers and writers of contemporary fiction, history can play the role that myth once did. Just as Sophocles’s audience … Continue reading
Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories
The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris & Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Berlin Stories collects Christopher Isherwood’s two novels of … Continue reading
Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López, The Eternaut
The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld My rating: 4 of 5 stars Though The Eternaut only appeared in an English translation in 2015, it is often considered one of the … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Love’s Labor’s Lost by William Shakespeare My rating: 4 of 5 stars This early Shakespearean comedy, dating from the 1590s, is paradoxically slight but weighty, thin but dense. That’s no … Continue reading
Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Let’s get the literary-historical info and honorifics out of the way first: Berlin Alexanderplatz is one of the monuments … Continue reading
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann My rating: 5 of 5 stars Far out to sea the water’s as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as … Continue reading
My Year in Books, 2018
Looking back, I see that I did a lot of rereading in 2018. Some of it was out of necessity (teaching), and some for pleasure. Some of it showed up … Continue reading
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut My rating: 2 of 5 stars But was I wrong, in “In Praise of Semicolons,” to be so severe in my judgment of Kurt Vonnegut, to … Continue reading
Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, Providence
Providence Act 1 by Alan Moore My rating: 4 of 5 stars It is with hesitation that I write anything about Providence. This recent three-volume graphic novel—a prequel/sequel to the … Continue reading
In Praise of Semicolons
Literary influence is usually amorphous, which is why an influence-obsessed critic like Harold Bloom has to bring in words like clinamen, tesserae, and apophrades as well as esoteric schools of … Continue reading
