Dave McKean, Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash by Dave McKean My rating: 4 of 5 stars In one of the many brilliant parables that occur throughout English artist Dave McKean’s … Continue reading
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe My rating: 4 of 5 stars I am neither a Marlovian scholar in particular nor an early modernist in general, but as far as I … Continue reading
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole My rating: 3 of 5 stars Published pseudonymously in 1764 by an English politician, The Castle of Otranto is usually praised as the … Continue reading
Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays
Selected Essays by Samuel Johnson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This Penguin Classics collection of essays by the great English critic and moralist Samuel Johnson is devoted largely to … Continue reading
Iris Murdoch, The Bell
The Bell by Iris Murdoch My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Bell is Iris Murdoch’s fourth novel. I had never read the celebrated 20th-century British philosopher and novelist before … Continue reading
Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters by Frances Stonor Saunders My rating: 4 of 5 stars Someone once said that beneath or behind … Continue reading
Against Celebration: Bloomsday vs. Dallowayday
Two years ago, Elaine Showalter suggested that we balance Bloomsday (June 16, the day whereon Joyce’s Ulysses is set) with Dallowayday: Like Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is set … Continue reading
Anna Kavan, Ice
Ice by Anna Kavan My rating: 4 of 5 stars Jonathan Lethem begins his introduction to the new Penguin Classics edition of this 1967 novel, “Anna Kavan’s Ice is a … Continue reading
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
Watchmen: The Annotated Edition by Alan Moore My rating: 4 of 5 stars [The following essay is divided into two parts: my critical analysis of Watchmen in general, and then … Continue reading
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Hamlet by William Shakespeare My rating: 5 of 5 stars Why is this bizarre, disorderly, long, and poorly transmitted tragedy from the turn of the seventeenth century the central work … Continue reading
