Category: creative-process
- He Can’t Get StartedNormal People a Hulu Original Series by Lenny Abramson and Hettie Macdonald. With Daisy Edgar-Jones, Paul Mescal, Desmond Eastwood, Sarah Greene. *** I thought this series would be right up my alley. It’s a coming of age story about a young Irishman who wants to be a writer; we see one year of high school and ...Read more
- You Got It All WrongBalthazar book two of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Faber. 884 pp. $16.95. This is a brilliant idea for a series of novels. Kudos to Lawrence Durrell for even thinking of it. But then for the man who conceived it to have a superb poetic style, an interest in religion and psychology and just about ...Read more
- Making Up for Lost TimeJustine book one of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Faber. 884 pp. $16.99 I’ve always been a book snob and have never read things when everyone else did. I didn’t read The Way of Zen—which changed my life—until my late thirties, though everyone else I knew read it in college. I read my wife’s copy, ...Read more
- Was Jung a Mystic?Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung’s Life and Teachings a new biography by Gary Lachman. Tarcher/Penguin258 pp. $24.95. This is my first biography of Jung, and I’m not at all sure this is the one to start with. Years ago, when my first marriage ended and I was going through a personal crisis, ...Read more
- Flashing Through TimeWarlight, a novel by Michael Ondaatje. Vintage. 285 pp. $16.95. ***** The Cat’s Table a novel by Michael Ondaatje. Vintage. 265 pp. $15.95. ***** I spent the early weeks of my self-isolation reading Michael Ondaatje. First his latest novel, Warlight, which was a gift from a friend. While I was reading and admiring that, she mentioned that ...Read more
- When Ritual Goes Too FarUnorthodox, a four-part series by Maria Schrader. With Shira Haas, Amit Rahav, Jeff Wilbusch. Netflix ***** Unorthodox is an absolutely brilliant piece of work, and I can’t recommend it too highly. Four episodes of roughly 50 minutes apiece, it shows a woman from an Orthodox community in Williamsburg Brooklyn fleeing her family and taking off for ...Read more
- In RecoveryThe Largesse of the Sea Maiden stories by Denis Johnson. Random House. 207 pp. $17.00. ***1/2 One thing I wonder about people in recovery—especially writers in recovery—is why they have an endless fascination with their period of addiction. It’s the same way people at AA get together and tell stories of their worst fuck-ups. “You think ...Read more
- World of WomenPortrait of a Lady on Fire a film by Celine Sciamma. With Noemie Merlant, Adele Haenel, Luana Bajrami, Valeria Golino. ***** Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set on an estate in 18th century Brittany, and in an early scene an artist named Marianne (Noemie Merlant) travels there, rowed by a group of men; from ...Read more
- Mea CulpaThe Land Breakers by John Ehle. New York Review Books. 345 pp $17.95 ***** For six years after my undergraduate career at Duke I lived in Winston-Salem, where I taught at a secondary school and spent every spare moment writing, at first just during vacations, then—beginning in my third year—getting up at 4:50 to write before ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young HasidMy Name Is Asher Lev a novel by Chaim Potok. Anchor Books. 369 pp. $15.95. **** When I was looking through Goodreads trying to decide if I wanted to read another Chaim Potok novel, I came across a reviewer who said—about this book, I believe—“Chaim Potok refuses to write a page turner.” I thought that an ...Read more
- It Happened in LisbonLike a Fading Shadow a novel by Antonio Munoz Molina. Picador. 312 pp. ****1/2 In 2013, Spanish novelist Antonio Munoz Molina traveled to Lisbon to help his son—who was living there as a freelancer—celebrate his 26th birthday. That marked a return to the city for Munoz Molina; he had gone there in 1987, when his son ...Read more
- Family ReunionThe Irishman a film by Martin Scorsese. With Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano. ***** Toward the end of The Irishman, the former union boss and mobster Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) is looking through some photos in a nursing home while a nurse takes his blood pressure. He asks her if she knows ...Read more
- Master and DiscipleThe Gift of Rain a novel by Tan Twan Eng. Weinstein Books. 432 pp. $16.99. **** The Gift of Rain is one of the most affecting novels I’ve read in years; toward the end I was both riveted to and deeply disturbed by what I was reading, so that I could hardly sleep. This is Tan ...Read more
- Poverty Has a SmellParasite a film by Bong Joon Ho. With Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeung Jo, Woi-six Choi. ***** Parasite is a movie about the vast gap in wealth that exists in the world today. It takes place in South Korea, but could take place any number of places, including this country. It begins as a whimsical comedy, ...Read more
- She’s Trapped But Her Voice Is FreeMilkman a novel by Anna Burns. Graywolf Press. 348 pp. $16.00 ****1/2 Milkman is simultaneously one of the most terrifying and hilarious novels in recent memory. It’s terrifying because it portrays a society where the two sides are locked in such mortal combat that people have become dreadfully paranoid; to express a shred of compassion for ...Read more
- Young Man with a HornA Good Day to Die a novel by Jim Harrison. A Delta Book. 176 pp. $7.95 (in 1973) ** It’s startling to realize that, after a first novel that was the semi-autobiographical and rather random ruminations of a poet who loved the natural world, Jim Harrison, with A Good Day to Die, suddenly became a novelist. ...Read more
- Words For What Is Beyond WordsSecret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions by Jeffrey J. Kripal. University of Chicago Press. 478 pp. Jeffrey J. Kripal is a religious writer like no other I’ve ever read. He grew up as a Catholic in Nebraska, for instance (there are Catholics in Nebraska?) He was devout, actually entered a seminary ...Read more
- We’re the UnderstoryThe Overstory a novel by Richard Powers. Norton. 502 pp. $18.95 The Overstory is nothing if not ambitious. It begins by introducing nine characters in brief vignettes, summing up their lives to a certain point; each of these characters, we have a feeling, could inhabit a novel of their own. The one thing they have in ...Read more
- Old Lady KoansThe Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. Edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon. Wisdom Publications. 455 pp. $18.95 Among my favorite Zen teachings are the Old Lady stories, where some pompous Zen master thinks a great deal of himself and has his bubble burst by a woman who has no apparent status ...Read more
- Present at the CreationWolf: A False Memoir by Jim Harrison. Delta. 225 pp. Having just made my way chronologically through the novels of Toni Morrison—an experience I’m still digesting—it occurred to me that I might do the same with Jim Harrison. I once wrote, “I sometimes think I could sit down and read through his entire oeuvre, all thirty ...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)