Category: creative-process
- Writing for his LifeDevouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life by Todd Goddard. Black Stone Publishing. 518 pp. **** In the late seventies, when my writing career was getting started, I followed the literary world the way other men follow the sports pages, and I vividly remember the event that put Jim Harrison on the map: Esquire published the ...Read more
- Mixed FeelingsThe Magus a novel by John Fowles. Back Bay Books. 656 pp. **** I can’t remember ever being as exasperated by a book that I basically liked as I was by The Magus. What I read—after my enthusiastic reading of The French Lieutenant’s Woman—was that, while that was considered his greatest novel, The Magus was his ...Read more
- The Lives of ArtistsSentimental Value a film by Joachin Trier. With Renata Reinsue, Stellan Skaargard, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning. Streaming on various platforms. ***** Sentimental Value is a movie about two great—and greatly troubled—artists. Gustav Borg (Stellan Skaargard) is an aging filmmaker who had many successes in the past but seems not to have done too well recently. ...Read more
- Who Gets the Oscar?One Battle After Another a film by Paul Thomas Anderson. With Teyanna Taylor, Leonardo Di Caprio, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Benito del Toro. ***** It isn’t just that the plot of One Battle After Another, which is utterly absurd, reflects our own current situation perfectly. It isn’t just that the movie includes one great performance after ...Read more
- UnforgettableThe French Lieutenant’s Woman a novel by John Fowles. Little, Brown and Company. 467 pp. ***** The French Lieutenant’s Woman was one of the favorite novels of my friend Levi, who had read it multiple times. In fact, I believe he gave me the copy I have, for my birthday or for Christmas; like most book ...Read more
- WSNothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare’s Love Life by Anthony Burgess. Norton. 234pp. ***** I am constantly amazed by Anthony Burgess. Using the evidence of the surviving poetry, especially the sonnets, and what is known about the chronology of the plays, Burgess has spun an utterly credible narrative of Shakespeare’s early life. More astounding ...Read more
- Science as ReligionI Am a Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein by Kieran Fox. Basic Books. 322 pp. $30.00 **** The basic premise of this book is that Albert Einstein’s life’s work stemmed from an essentially religious feeling of awe and wonder at the workings of the universe. Kiernan Fox cites an early moment when ...Read more
- Sheer DestructionA Clockwork Orange a novel by Anthony Burgess. Norton. 213 pp. $15.95. ***** In the early seventies, there were three movies that took violence in cinema to a whole new level: The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and A Clockwork Orange. My wife and I saw Straw Dogs, which portrayed Dustin Hoffman as a confirmed pacifist who ...Read more
- Don’t Miss This OneA Gathering of Old Men a novel by Ernest J. Gaines. From Gaines: Four Novels. Library of America. pp. 405-583. ***** Though I almost didn’t read it—I’d been disappointed by In My Father’s House, which I found oddly inert—A Gathering Of Old Men might be Ernest J. Gaines’ best novel. It is certainly the most suspenseful; ...Read more
- A Few More Words on FaulknerStories by William Faulkner. Library of America. 1160 pp. ***** I have now, so help me God, read every word William Faulkner wrote and published, at least all the prose. I enthusiastically reviewed this book some weeks ago, and had just a couple of small sections to go. Also, I hadn’t read the first volume in ...Read more
- Charmed LifeThe Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994 by Thomas Mallon. Knopf. 573 pp. $40.00. ***** It seems forever since I’ve posted on my website, but I spent much of July reading and reviewing a new biography of Peter Matthiessen for the winter issue of Tricycle. I’m also still reading bits and pieces of Faulkner ...Read more
- ImposterFaulkner: Stories (Knight’s Gambit, Collected Stories, Big Woods, Other Works). Library of America. 1160 pp. ***** For some time I’ve been claiming (rather proudly) that I recently completed a project of reading and rereading all of William Faulkner. It was five Library of America volumes, and it took me months, reading the novels in order. I ...Read more
- A Star Is Not BornFlora and Son a film by John Carney. With Eve Hewson, Oren Kinlan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Paul Reid. Streaming on Apple TV. ***** Flora and Son is a delightful movie about a woman who, for no good reason, wants to take up music, and a failed, somewhat broken ex-performer who takes the time to teach her. It ...Read more
- Weird From the Get GoNo One Belongs Here More Than You stories by Miranda July. Scribner. 205 pp. $18.00 **** The First Bad Man a novel by Miranda July. Scribner. 276 pp. $18.00 **** I have now read the complete prose fiction of Miranda July, and I must say I’m dumbfounded. As I said before, I think All Fours is a ...Read more
- Two MasterpiecesNickel Boys a film by RaMell Ross. With Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, Trey Perkins. Streaming on various platforms. ***** I felt about the movie Nickel Boys exactly the way I felt about the book; I wanted to see it but was half afraid to. There are many ways a movie could have ...Read more
- Mary, Erica, MirandaAll Fours a novel by Miranda July. Riverhead Books. 326 pp. ***** My original idea—as I mentioned in my last post—was to compare the outrageous women from different generations, my mother’s (Mary McCarthy), mine (Erica Jong), and my son’s (Miranda July). I’d been reading Mary McCarthy already, I’ve read Erica Jong—and written about her—in the past, ...Read more
- Unfinished LivesLincoln in the Bardo a novel by George Saunders. Random House. 343 pp. ***** I haven’t been a fan of George Saunders’ short stories. I read Tenth of December with admiration but without much pleasure. The stories seemed clever and aesthetically interesting, but I couldn’t get into them as narratives. I’m more a John O’Hara guy. ...Read more
- American OriginalRecollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years by Diane di Prima. Penguin Books. 424 pp. $18.00. **** In this astonishing and inspiring memoir—424 tightly packed pages full of remarkably detailed writing, which covers maybe 30 years of a hugely eventful life—there are several moments that stand out for me. One is when, ...Read more
- And Is He PissedValdez Is Coming a novel by Elmore Leonard. From Elmore Leonard: Westerns. Library of America. pp. 279-414. ***** I shouldn’t make too much of Elmore Leonard. I probably already have. He was a genre writer who didn’t care what genre he was in, switched from Westerns to Crime novels when the Western market fizzled out. He ...Read more
- She Wasn’t Crazy. The World Was.The Known World a novel by Edward P. Jones. Harper Perennial. 388 pp. ***** It isn’t often that I read a novel, then sit down immediately and read it again. I wasn’t planning to do that this time. But as I pondered my previous review of The Known World, I saw structural things about the novel ...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)