Category: aging
- Old Master(The Faulkner Project) The Reivers, a Reminiscence from William Faulkner Novels 1957-1962. Library of America pp. 723-921. ***** In the summer of 1961, though he had recently written a friend that he was ready to give up writing, William Faulkner sat down to write a story he’d had in mind for some time. He wrote the ...Read more
- Faulkner at his Knottiest(The Faulkner Project) Go Down, Moses from Faulkner Novels 1942-1954 Library of America pp. 1-281 ***** I had an odd thought when I began this novel, the thirteenth in my survey of Faulkner’s work: This is the real Faulkner. It’s a strange thing to say about a man who had already written four or five masterpieces, ...Read more
- Healing Our WoundsRobert Bly (1926-2021) In 1988, the North Carolina Independent asked me to attend and write about a Robert Bly Day for Men, the first such event to take place in the Triangle. I’m not much of one for workshops and other public events, so I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise, but in many ways that day ...Read more
- Living for Love(The Faulkner Project) If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem from Faulkner Novels 1936-1940. Library of America. **** Somewhat to my surprise, this is my least favorite of all the novels I’ve reread in the Faulkner Project. I had read it only once, and I think I was still in college, because I remember telling a friend about ...Read more
- Man on the MoonRobert McCutcheon 1921-2021 The thing I will most remember about my Uncle Bob is the way he took care of my mother—his sister—when she had dementia. Her second husband, my stepfather, had died just before she turned 90, and it took some time for us to realize that he had been her memory in recent years ...Read more
- I’m Crying UncleCry Macho a film by Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam, Natalia Traven, Eduardo Minett ** Many years ago, I saw Merce Cunningham appear in a dance he had choreographed. He was in his mid-sixties, and though the spirit was willing the flesh was weak. Dance is all about young beautiful flexible bodies, and he ...Read more
- We Look on in FascinationFor my 73rd Birthday Last Tuesday as I walked around Duke’s East Campus I saw the freshmen moving in (when I was at Duke, East Campus was for women; now it houses freshmen), all these fresh-faced, anxious, unformed young adults, and realized to my astonishment that it was fifty-five years ago that I did the same ...Read more
- The Wild Man and the SchoolmarmAppreciate Your Life: The Essence of Zen Practice by Taizan Maezumi Roshi. Shambhala. 160pp. $19.59. ***** Ordinary Wonder: Zen Life and Practice by Charlotte Joko Beck. Shambhala. 240 pp. $17.95. ***** Dharma books wander into my life at exactly the right moment. Years ago, I picked up Taizan Maezumi’s Appreciate Your Life and, except for the title ...Read more
- Name Droppers ExtraordinaireInside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis. Knopf. 545 pp. $28.82 Country Girl: A Memoir by Edna O’Brien. Little, Brown. 368 pp. $27.94. Inside Story is a novel because Martin Amis chooses to call it one. It has novelistic sections, but the bulk of the book is a memoir of some writers who have been his good ...Read more
- His Crime: He’s a BoorAnd He’s Not the Only One There’s a confusion these days between boorish male behavior and sexual assault. Democratic candidates are being canceled if they look at a woman sideways while Republican candidates admit that they grab women by the pussy and nobody blinks an eye (except the woman in question. Ow, Donny. Those might be ...Read more
- She Doesn’t Give a Rat’s AssI Care a Lot a film by J Blakeson. With Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eliza Gonzalez, Diane Wiest. Streaming on Netflix. ***** I Care a Lot—a comedy—is the most morally despicable movie I’ve seen in years. The female protagonists are the most hateful characters I can recall in a film. It includes stomach-churning violence, has any ...Read more
- Hem IIIHemingway | The Blank Page | 1944-1961 a film by Ken Burns and Kim Novick. Streaming on PBS **** The Sun Also Rises & Other Writings 1918-1926 by Ernest Hemingway. Library of America. 850 pp. ***** There’s nothing about the writing or production values that makes this third episode of Hemingway not as good as the others, ...Read more
- Portrait of a Lunatic (You Wrote About the Wrong Cousin, Iris Murdoch)The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch. Penguin Classics. 495 pp. $20.00 ***** The Sea, the Sea has everything going for it. It’s large and expansive, beautifully written; it contains a wealth of fascinating characters; it traces a wild plot, where things keep happening that you can’t believe, and it comes to an emotionally satisfying confusion. ...Read more
- Ode to SwimmingGet Back to Where You Once Belonged Yesterday I swam for the first time in over a year. Since 1985—that’s 35 years—I’d gone swimming at the Y three times a week. I’d been a jogger before that, but the North Carolina heat and my aching joints made me turn to swimming at the age of 37. I’d ...Read more
- Alice’s GazeLosing Alice a series by Sigan Avin. On Apple TV. With Ayelet Zurer, Lihi Kornowski, Gal Toren. **** Losing Alice is one of the stranger things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s a movie about the creative process, the artistic careers of women and men, and the lengths to which people will go to create ...Read more
- I Like IkeThe Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer Volume II: A Friend of Kafka to Passions. Library of America. 856 pp. ***** Back in the days when Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories appeared in the New Yorker, I never missed one. It was a thrill to read the work of a man who wrote so vividly, who seemed ...Read more
- And Talk They DidLet Them All Talk a film by Steven Soderbergh. With Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen, Gemma Chan, Lucas Hedges. Available on HBO Plus. ***** At one point in Let Them All Talk, a movie about three old college friends who do a crossing on the Queen Mary 2, Susan (Dianne Wiest) stops an awkward conversation ...Read more
- Gone Fishin’Haven’t Posted in a While I wanted to drop a line to my loyal readers to say that the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I recently got an idea for a longer writing project and want to take a look at that. I never know if a longer project is going to ...Read more
- The Height of her PowersThe Friend a novel by Sigrid Nunez. Riverhead Books. 224 pp. $10.39. I don’t know how Sigrid Nunez does it. She seems to begin her novels any old place, with whatever event comes to mind, and moves on from there. She doesn’t tell stories chronologically or in any particular way, but they fall right into place. ...Read more
- What Finally MattersWhat Are You Going Through: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez. Riverhead Books. 224 pp. $19.59. ***** The idea sounds grim beyond belief. Our narrator—living in New York—has a friend in a nearby town who is dying of cancer. At first the woman seems to be in remission, but then the cancer comes back with a vengeance, ...Read more
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All Shook UpWhat's in a Song? IIWriting for his LifeWhat’s in a Song?Mixed Feelings
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (127)American literature (226)art (123)Buddhism (171)Christianity (132)creative process (262)death and dying (144)meditation (125)movies (167)music (42)race (110)religion (196)sex (187)spirituality (174)the art of narrative (266)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)