Alice Munro’s Men
The late author Alice Munro’s work is criticized for its portrayal of men. But radically, not all her rejected male characters are mediocrities.
literature
War Fever in Norman Lock’s ‘The Caricaturist’
In Norman Lock’s The Caricaturist, the characters find themselves in a fraught time of war fever just as one century dies and a new one is born.
James Baldwin Digs Into the Roots of American Music
James Baldwin’s writing about music illuminates the significance of racial slavery for all American music. Black American music can help America to move forward if used properly.
Hypochondria Sets the Rules for ‘Here Is a Game We Could Play’
Hypochondria, obsession, and confusion set the rules for a love affair in Jenny Bitner’s excellent debut novel, Here Is a Game We Could Play.
Is Louis Menand Right About the Death of Art and Thought in America?
For intellectual historian Louis Menand, the Cold War gave rise to prospects and paradoxes in America, and Art was given status through essential criticism.
‘Klara and the Sun’ Explores What Makes Us Tick
‘Klara and the Sun’ is dappled with themes of personal identity and death, in one form or another.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Klara and the Sun’ Is a Simple Story about Complicated Things
There is nothing artificial about Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara of ‘Klara and the Sun’. That’s the tragedy and the irony of being an Artificial Friend.
Truths Overlap in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Memoir of German Reunification, ‘Not a Novel’
Living under the repressive East German regime taught its citizens to distrust their government and read through the lines of its proclamations to glean the reality of a situation, Jenny Erpenbeck explains in Not a Novel.
Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Death in Her Hands’ Is Not What It Seems
A character named Magda dies, and lives, in language only in Ottessa Moshfegh's Death in Her Hands. But then again, don't all literary characters?
Five Women Who Fought the Patriarchy
Whether one chooses to read Square Haunting for the sketches of the five fascinating women, or to understand how misogyny and patriarchy constricted intellectual and public life in the period, Francesca Wade's book is a superb achievement.
The Rules Don’t Apply to These Nonconformist Novelists
Ian Haydn Smith's succinct biographies in Cult Writers: 50 Nonconformist Novelists You Need to Know entice even seasoned bibliophiles.
What’s Love Got To Do with It? Shakespeare’s ‘Venus & Adonis’
The worn trope—Time Devours All Things (tempus edax rerum)—is true for human beings, says Shakespeare: if you’re a mortal, death lurks at the heart of the very thing you most want. During a plague, or a pandemic, it’s wanting that endangers us.