Photo: Peter Horvath
Continue reading “Pillars of Salt”In Vonnegut, that which survives being proofed by satire, as Billy Pilgrim is so mercilessly in Slaughterhouse Five, becomes both human and wise.
Pillars of Salt
Tag: novel
Empathy and Irony
Continue reading “Empathy and Irony”But then along comes “Behold the Dreamers,” a debut novel by a young woman from Cameroon that illuminates the immigrant experience in America with the tenderhearted wisdom so lacking in our political discourse.
Ron Charles, The Washington Post
The Novel as Atonement
Photo: Atonement, dir. Joe Wright
Continue reading “The Novel as Atonement”It wasn’t only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter into these different minds and show how they had an equal value.
Ian McEwan, Atonement
The Death of Old Goriot
Photos: The New Yorker, Penguin Books
Continue reading “The Death of Old Goriot”Rastignac gives up on his chance for wisdom, but Balzac clearly holds out hope, against considerable odds, for his implied reader.
A.Ham in the Age of Trump
Continue reading “A.Ham in the Age of Trump”Hamilton continues to resonate because it speaks, consistently and profoundly, to a deep hunger for wisdom in American society today.