Category: the-art-of-narrative
- 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
- Happier Simpler Time?Little Women a film by Greta Gerwig. With Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep. **** I’ll start by admitting that, unlike every woman I’ve spoken to about it, I didn’t read the book. A boy reading such a book in my day—the late fifties and early sixties—would have been weird. ...Read more
- What Violence BegetsQueen and Slim a film by Melina Matsoukas. With Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine. Written by Lena Waithe ***** This is a stupendous movie, another absolute must see, by a group of people I hadn’t encountered before (which may be a failing on my part). The acting, directing, and cinematography are all marvelous, but the ...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
- 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
- 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
- Too Close to HomeEmily, Alone a novel by Stewart O’Nan. Penguin Books. 255 pp. $17.00 I picked up this book because a friend of my brother told him it was set in “our Pittsburgh.” I couldn’t believe the extent to which that is true. The aging widow Emily Maxwell does not live quite in my neighborhood, but close enough, ...Read more
- Closing the BookHome a novel by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 145 pp. $14.95 *** God Help the Child a novel by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 178 pp. $14.95 *** Last April, having seen Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, I resolved to read all of her novels, in order of composition. It’s taken a ...Read more
- Good Could Have Been GreatMy Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk’s Wife in Japan by Tracy Franz. Stone Bridge Press. 306 pp. $16.95. ***1/2 I don’t believe in publishing pages from a journal. I’m all for keeping a journal (Thoreau is one of my heroes); it’s an invaluable practice to sit down every day and review ...Read more
- Women Without MenA Mercy a novel by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 196 pp. $15.95 I have felt adrift in Toni Morrison novels before—at some point in every book I’ve read—but never right at the beginning as in A Mercy. It begins with a short section in first person, and I had no idea what was going on, almost stopped ...Read more
- Hear Hear!There There a novel by Tommy Orange. Vintage. 292 pp. $16.00 ****1/2 This novel is as good as everyone says it is, and that’s saying a lot: it’s been hyped by everyone from Pam Houston (who was apparently Orange’s writing teacher) to President Obama, who has called it one of his favorite books. It is a ...Read more
- What Love?Love a novel by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 202 pp. $15.00 I was sitting down to write about her eighth novel—I’ve been reading her work chronologically, ever since I saw Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am—when I heard the news that Toni Morrison had died, at the age of 88. At first I thought I should write ...Read more
- Too Much ThinkingCall It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World by Serene Jones. Viking. 310 pp. ***1/2 Four Men Shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher by Lawrence Shainberg. Shambhala. 134 pp. $16.95. ****1/2 “To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind ...Read more
- Fools’Paradise a novel by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 318 pp. $16.00 I can agree that Beloved is Toni Morrison’s masterpiece, but in some ways I found Paradise a more inventive and intricate novel. It’s the story of a fictional town in Oklahoma that was settled in the mid-twentieth century by African Americans who had been turned away ...Read more
- Aristocrat of ConsciousnessConversations with Jim Harrison Revised and Updated Edited by Robert DeMott. University Press of Mississippi. 289 pp. $25.00 ***** Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems Edited by Joseph Bednarik. Copper Canyon Press. 229 pp. $18.00 ***** Some years ago—probably thirty, at this point—I was sitting with a bunch of book reviewers and editors in New York, celebrating the ...Read more
- Frankie and Johnny Were SweetheartsJazz a novel by Toni Morrison. Plume/Penguin. 229 pp. $11.95 As I move chronologically through Toni Morrison’s fiction and arrive at her sixth novel, I’ve come to various conclusions: I think of her as a Southern writer. Actually, she grew up on Lorain, Ohio, and never lived in the South. (Lorain, as she describes it in the ...Read more
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Where Memory ResidesGoing StraightNoisy NeighborsLoosely Is the WordThis Lane Is Your Lane, That Lane Is My Lane
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (132)American literature (231)art (123)Buddhism (174)Christianity (133)creative process (266)death and dying (144)meditation (128)movies (171)music (46)race (113)religion (199)sex (194)spirituality (177)the art of narrative (271)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)