Category: sex
- What Strikes Fear into Every Man’s Heart?Women Talking a film by Sarah Polley. With Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Emily Mitchell, Kate Hallett. Streaming on Apple TV. ***** Reflections on a Movie In Women Talking, a group of women finally gets together to talk about the things nobody has been saying. It is based on a novel about Miriam Toews, and borrows its premise ...Read more
- Blind AmbitionUp With the Sun a novel by Thomas Mallon. Knopf. 337 pp. $28.00. ***** It’s a horrible thing to say, but I like Dick Kallman better when he’s dead. That’s partly because author Thomas Mallon has chosen to tell Kallman’s story from dual viewpoints, one in the first person, told by Dick’s occasional piano-accompanist Matt Liannetto; the ...Read more
- War Is AbsurdThe Banshees of Inisherin a film by Martin McDonagh. With Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan. Streaming on HBO Max. **** I can’t remember ever saying this before, but I enjoyed thinking about this movie more than actually watching it. The watching was sometimes excruciating, especially because my wife kept jumping up and leaving ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artist as a MegalomaniacTar a film by Todd Field. With Cate Blanchett, Noemie Merlat, Nina Hoss. In theaters and available for an arm and a leg on Prime Video. Well worth the money. ***** Tar begins brilliantly, with its protagonist Lydia Tar (Cate Blanchett) calming herself for a performance, fidgeting, doing special breathing and relaxation exercises, readying herself in ...Read more
- Just Do ItThe Idiot a novel by Elif Batuman. A Penguin Book. 423 pp. $17.00. ***1/2 Holy God, as a friend used to say, am I glad I went to college when I did. It was a difficult moment in this country’s history, the Vietnam war raging, a decent grade point average the only thing between me and ...Read more
- Love in the Time of ParanoiaFellow Travelers a novel by Thomas Mallon. Vintage Books. 354 pp. $16.00. ***** Thomas Mallon is a historical novelist of much renown; Henry and Clara—his breakthrough book—told the story of the couple who occupied the booth with Lincoln on the night he was shot. I’ve always thought it took colossal nerve to write such a book. ...Read more
- Far Out, ManTripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book from Maxine Hong Kingston Library of America. Viet Thanh Nguyen, editor. pp 479-864. **** This novel, published in 1989, is the quintessential Sixties novel (and seems to be the only novel that Maxine Hong Kingston has published, though she was a famous writer by the time it came out, having published ...Read more
- Ancient and TwistedUntangling Karma: Intimate Zen Stories on Healing Trauma by Judith Ragir. Monkfish. 251 pp. $18.99 Untangling Karma is not quite a dharma book and not quite a memoir, but has elements of both. Judith Ragir is a longtime Zen practitioner—some forty years—who has looked back at her life of practice and seen what it has done ...Read more
- Pass the BottleAll My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers a novel by Larry McMurtry. Liveright. 277pp. $15.95 **** Everybody loves a story about a fuck-up. When you read about a guy who is as likely to spend the night on a couch in the university library as he is in his bed at home (he has a ...Read more
- Two People TalkingDrive My Car a film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. With Hidetosha Nishijima, Toko, Miura, Reika Kirishima, Park YuRim. Streaming on HBO Max. ***** Drive My Car is so fundamentally strange a movie that it’s hard to know how to talk about it. The full credits, for instance, don’t appear until forty minutes in. There are still two ...Read more
- 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
- The Weak Are the StrongThe Power of the Dog a film by Jane Campion. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirstin Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee. Streaming on Netflix. ***** The Power of the Dog has such an air of menace that it’s almost unbearable to watch. It’s set in Montana in the early part of the 20th century (though it was filmed ...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
- 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
- Signifying Everything(The Faulkner Project) The Sound and the Fury from Faulkner Novels 1926-1929 Library of America pp. 877-1141. ***** I think of this as Faulkner’s greatest novel, which means that no one in America has written a better one. If there is a Great American Novel (there isn’t), this is it. This is my fifth or sixth reading ...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
- Not the One Who Likes SpinachSanctuary by William Faulkner. Library of America Faulkner Novels 1930-1935. pp. 179-399 **** The official version of the genesis of Sanctuary—which Faulkner told in the preface to the Modern Library edition—is that, after publishing four novels, he was tired of making no money (how he thought The Sound and the Fury would make money I do ...Read more
- MeantownMare of Easttown a TV Mini Series by Craig Zobel. Written by Brad Ingelsby. With Kate Winslett, Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Guy Pearce. HBO. ****1/2 As a person who grew up in Pennsylvania, I know there is an element of crabby, pessimistic, life-denying people who live there, especially in the smaller industrial communities. There’s also another ...Read more
- Prof Meets CopIn the Cut a novel by Susanna Moore. Random House. ***** The end of this novel is so startling—and so nervy on the part of the author—that I almost couldn’t believe it. It’s one of those books where you think you’re missing the final pages, they’ve been ripped out (which is tough when you’re reading the ...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
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You Need to be WritingThe Other SideThe River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseThe Nothing of GodWe Are Stardust We Are Golden
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (197)art (109)Buddhism (163)Christianity (119)creative process (232)death and dying (128)meditation (118)movies (152)music (36)race (95)religion (180)sex (157)spirituality (167)the art of narrative (238)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)