Category: art
- Coming HomeAn Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn. Vintage. 306 pp. $16.00 **** I’m a sucker for father-son stories, and this one is unique; several years ago, Daniel Mendelsohn’s 81-year-old father asked if he could attend the freshman seminar on The Odyssey that Mendelsohn was teaching at Bard College. The elder Mendelsohn ...Read more
- Colette Before ColetteColette a film by Wash Westmoreland. With Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough. ***1/2 Colette was a great hero of mine when I was young, because she wrote both fiction and nonfiction, she always seemed to write about herself, she wrote about transgressive subjects, and she seemed to discover herself through writing. She made ...Read more
- Go For the MusicA Star Is Born a film by Bradley Cooper. With Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle. **** The first thing I should say is that—somewhat to my surprise—I liked this movie from beginning to end. Bradley Cooper’s Jack was a warm and compelling character; the entire cast was great, including various ...Read more
- Infinity in a Grain of SandForever a series by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard. With Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Catherine Keener, Noah Robbins. ***** Forever is one of the most unusual things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s composed of eight episodes roughly thirty minutes long, so my wife and I watched it over two nights. The difficulty with writing ...Read more
- Saul Learning to BellowThe Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. Penguin Classics. 586 pp. $17.00 ****1/2 When I was a teenager in Pittsburgh in the Sixties, I made up my mind that I wanted to be a writer (without telling anybody, in case I failed), and set about trying to educate myself. The writers we studied at school ...Read more
- Why Books Are Better Than MoviesThe Wife a novel by Meg Wolitzer. Simon and Schuster. 219 pp. $16.00. **** They aren’t always better. The Godfather is a case in point, though it was a better book than it gets credit for. But The Wife is a much better book than movie not ...Read more
- Ditching the DipshitJuliet, Naked a film by Jesse Peretz. With Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, Ethan Hawke, Azhy Robertson. ****1/2 There are all kinds of nutcase people on the Internet, pursuing this or that weird obsession (like Buddhism, Books, Movies, Life). Now and then I’ve stumbled across someone whose Internet presence resembles a weird rabbit hole. Duncan (Chris O’Dowd) ...Read more
- You’ve Just Paid the Artist a Wonderful ComplimentNow Go to Hell I wrote recently about Samuel R. Delany’s Dark Reflections, a novel in which Delany seems completely present, but has given himself another life. Instead of being a science fiction writer, Arnold Hawley is a poet. Instead of living in New York and teaching at Temple, he lives in New York and teaches ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artist as a Befuddled Old ManDark Reflections by Samuel R. Delany. Carroll & Graf. 295 pp. $15.95. ***** There’s nobody quite like Samuel R. Delany, and every now and then I have to read one of his books, often one I’ve read before (this is either my third or fourth time with Dark Reflections). He had an early career as a ...Read more
- But Who’s Counting?A Brief History of Seven Killings a novel by Marlon James. Riverhead Books. 688 pp. $17.00. **** I don’t know quite what to say about this novel, which I seem to have lived with for half my life (probably six weeks or so). It’s a massive novel about gangs in Jamaica, also the CIA in Jamaica, ...Read more
- Who Rolled this Joint?BlackkKlansman a film by Spike Lee. With John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace. *** I seem to be a minority of one, but I found this movie a major disappointment, perhaps because of my high expectations. I’m a Spike Lee fan from way back—Do the Right Thing is an old favorite—and I was looking forward ...Read more
- Most Terrifying Movie Title EverEighth Grade a film by Bo Burnham. With Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson, Jake Ryan. ***** By some weird coincidence, in the past two weeks I have watched two movies about single fathers raising thirteen-year-old daughters. I think these are the only two such movies I’ve ever seen in my life. And though I absolutely ...Read more
- Or Maybe Leave a Small OneLeave No Trace a film by Debra Granik. With Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie. ***** Leave No Trace is a marvelous and heartbreaking film, certainly the best movie of the summer if not of the year so far. I’d seen the trailer five or six times and had the vague feeling this was one of those We’re-Better-Than-the-Rest-of-You ...Read more
- AddictSabbath’s Theater from Novels 1993-1995 by Philip Roth. Library of America. 842 pp. ****1/2 Where does all the bitterness come from? I kept asking myself as I read this—brilliant, in many ways—novel by Philip Roth. I understand that Roth was creating a character, that he was speaking through that character, that Mickey Sabbath is not Philip ...Read more
- Communion of Saints[1]Won’t You Be My Neighbor? a film by Morgan Neville. With Fred Rogers, Joanne Rogers, Joe Negri, Francois Clemmons. ****1/2 Fred Rogers was one weird dude. In all of show business, people on television, people who perform, who work with children, I’ve never seen anyone like him. He had a television show in which, for all ...Read more
- Arf ArfIsle of Dogs a film by Wes Anderson. With (among many others) Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand. ***** My friend Sally (whom I seem to be mentioning all the time here) recently wrote me the following sentence in an e-mail: “I was trying to think of books, current and always current, ...Read more
- Fiction Flirting with RealityWar & Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans. Vintage. 286 pp. $16.95. ***** How Should a Person Be? By Sheila Heti. Picador. 306 pp. $17.00. *** War & Turpentine is an absolutely stupendous novel which I can’t recommend highly enough; it had me rapt the whole time I was reading it, and I would happily have gone on reading ...Read more
- She Got Her ManPhantom Thread a film by Paul Thomas Anderson. With Vicky Krieps, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville ***** It’s tough to like a movie when you can’t stand the protagonist. But I absolutely loved Phantom Thread. It’s a candidate for my favorite movie of the year. Reynolds Woodcock—who has a hard name to live up to—is a neurotic, arrogant, ...Read more
- Sex in HeavenCall Me By Your Name a film by Luca Guadagnino. With Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar. ****1/2 First the things I don’t like: Everybody is so good looking. They’re all so intelligent, and talented. This is the kind of movie where people are lying around their Italian villa in the sun, not doing ...Read more
- Is That a Promise?Ruminations on Star Wars: The Last Jedi a film by Rian Johnson. With Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega. ***1/2 For the critics who are now active and influential, the Star Wars movies were their first epics, the movies they grew up on and worshiped. I’m trying to think of what might ...Read more
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Dogen for the MassesWeird From the Get GoTwo MasterpiecesMary, Erica, MirandaUntil the End
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (218)art (114)Buddhism (170)Christianity (125)creative process (249)death and dying (139)meditation (124)movies (161)music (36)race (106)religion (188)sex (172)spirituality (171)the art of narrative (255)Uncategorized (20)world literature (23)