Category: sex
- All Shook UpThe Testament of Ann Lee a film by Mona Fastvold. With Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman. ** “Why did she make that movie?” my wife asked as we walked out of the theater. Ordinarily I would think that an irrelevant question. You don’t choose the story, as writers will tell you, the story chooses you. But in this ...Read more
- What’s in a Song? IIA Fool for You by Ray Charles He held the needle above the record, preparing to lower it into the proper groove. “This song is about fucking,” he said. My friend Stan Hahn had been telling me for weeks about a huge collection of jazz records his father had, and a Hi Fi system (the year was ...Read more
- 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
- What’s in a Song?“One Night” by Elvis Presley I’m inspired to write about songs by The Philosophy of Modern Song, by Bob Dylan, but also by three books written by the great Al Young, Bodies & Soul, Kinds of Blue, and Things Ain’t What They Used to Be. Young in particular is an inspiration. He would write about anything, ...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
- What Do I Call This Thing?The Flamethrowers a novel by Rachel Kushner. Scribner. 383 pp. ***** Rachel Kushner is a writer who is so riveting line by line that you forget to step back and ask yourself what you’ve been reading. Then your wife asks and you say, it’s about an art student in New York named Reno (named for the ...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
- 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
- John Wilson. Great Writer.The Pianoplayers a novel by Anthony Burgess. Arbor House. 208 pages. **** Anthony Burgess is one of my great literary heroes. Born in 1917—the same year as my father—he was a middle-aged itinerant teacher who had done some writing on the side (he’d actually published four novels; only for Burgess would that be considered a sideline) ...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
- Over the HillThe Last Showgirl a film by Gia Coppola. Written by Kate Gersten. With Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, Dave Bautista. Streaming on Amazon and Apple. ***** Shelly (Pamela Anderson) has given her life to her career as a Las Vegas showgirl, dancing in a show called Le Razzle Dazzle, which ...Read more
- Aspiration Meets RealityThe Group a novel by Mary McCarthy. From Novels 1963-1979. Library of America. pp. 1-359. ***** I said here recently, in my study of outrageous women from several generations, that All Fours is a better novel than anything Mary McCarthy or Erica Jong had written. That may still be true. But at that point I hadn’t ...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
- 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
- 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
- Losing ItBetween the Temples a film by Nathan Silver. With Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Robert Smigel, Caroline Aaron, Madeleine Weinstein. Streaming on Netflix. **** Between the Temples has a homegrown, home-movieish feeling that I associate with movies from the sixties and seventies (the golden age of cinema as far as I’m concerned). From the opening shot, where ...Read more
- Keep an Eye on IgorAnora a film by Sean Baker. With Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov. Streaming (by purchase) on Amazon Prime **** Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes. My feelings about this movie are largely informed by a conversation I had with my wife the morning after we saw it, as we took our long hike ...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)