Category: the-art-of-narrative
- Why Am I Laughing?Vice a film by Adam McKay. With Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell. **** I have weirdly mixed feelings about Vice. I want to give it five stars and want to give it one. The performances are brilliant: Christian Bale as Dick Cheney (he gained 45 pounds for the role, and has an uncanny knack for the man’s ...Read more
- A Rage to ConnectAt Eternity’s Gate a film by Julian Schnabel. With Willem Dafoe, Rubert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Emmanuelle Seigner. ****1/2 I don’t know how many movies there have been about Vincent Van Gogh, though I myself have seen three or four. I have not seen the 1956 portrayal by Kirk Douglas, and don’t believe I will. Ever since I was a kid ...Read more
- Downstairs UpstairsRoma a film by Alfonso Cuaron. With Yalitza Aparicio, Marian de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta. ****1/2 After the mind-numbing experience of seeing trailer after trailer in which some gigantic robot is saving the world from some other gigantic robot, it comes as a relief to see a movie in which the final shot—with a wide angle lens—is of ...Read more
- Yes ButWidows a film by Steve McQueen. With Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Carrie Coon, Liam Neeson. ****1/2 Widows is a movie that is deeply satisfying emotionally and aesthetically without—as far as I’m concerned—making a hell of a lot of sense. Veronica (Viola Davis) is the wife of a career criminal named Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson), ...Read more
- Coming HomeAn Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn. Vintage. 306 pp. $16.00 **** I’m a sucker for father-son stories, and this one is unique; several years ago, Daniel Mendelsohn’s 81-year-old father asked if he could attend the freshman seminar on The Odyssey that Mendelsohn was teaching at Bard College. The elder Mendelsohn ...Read more
- There Was a WarGrant by Ron Chernow. Penguin Press. 1074 pp. $40.00. ***** A friend of mine once told a story about General Patton, that after he died he asked St. Peter to take him back in history and show him the greatest general who ever lived. St. Peter agreed, and they traveled back in time to a small ...Read more
- Woman of LettersCan You Ever Forgive Me? a film by Marielle Heller. With Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Anna Deavere Smith. ****1/2 I’ve always been a fan of Melissa McCarthy; I think she’s pretty, funny, sexy, and is one of those actors who lights up the screen the moment she appears, especially in Bridesmaids, the first movie ...Read more
- Colette Before ColetteColette a film by Wash Westmoreland. With Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough. ***1/2 Colette was a great hero of mine when I was young, because she wrote both fiction and nonfiction, she always seemed to write about herself, she wrote about transgressive subjects, and she seemed to discover herself through writing. She made ...Read more
- Infinity in a Grain of SandForever a series by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard. With Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Catherine Keener, Noah Robbins. ***** Forever is one of the most unusual things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s composed of eight episodes roughly thirty minutes long, so my wife and I watched it over two nights. The difficulty with writing ...Read more
- Saul Learning to BellowThe Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. Penguin Classics. 586 pp. $17.00 ****1/2 When I was a teenager in Pittsburgh in the Sixties, I made up my mind that I wanted to be a writer (without telling anybody, in case I failed), and set about trying to educate myself. The writers we studied at school ...Read more
- Why Books Are Better Than MoviesThe Wife a novel by Meg Wolitzer. Simon and Schuster. 219 pp. $16.00. **** They aren’t always better. The Godfather is a case in point, though it was a better book than it gets credit for. But The Wife is a much better book than movie not ...Read more
- Right Star, Wrong PrizeThe Wife a film by Bjorn Runge. With Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Max Irons, Christian Slater. ***1/2 The reason to see this movie is for the performances, especially the one by Glenn Close, but also Max Irons and Christian Slater. Jonathan Pryce plays a nebbish named Joe Castleman and does a creditable job, but the man ...Read more
- How Then Should We Live?The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund De Waal. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 418 pp. $40.00 (the illustrated edition) **** Crazy Rich Asians a film by Jon M. Chu. With Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina. **** Scott Fitzgerald: “The rich are different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway: “Yes, they have more money.” Fitzgerald ...Read more
- Ditching the DipshitJuliet, Naked a film by Jesse Peretz. With Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, Ethan Hawke, Azhy Robertson. ****1/2 There are all kinds of nutcase people on the Internet, pursuing this or that weird obsession (like Buddhism, Books, Movies, Life). Now and then I’ve stumbled across someone whose Internet presence resembles a weird rabbit hole. Duncan (Chris O’Dowd) ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artist as a Befuddled Old ManDark Reflections by Samuel R. Delany. Carroll & Graf. 295 pp. $15.95. ***** There’s nobody quite like Samuel R. Delany, and every now and then I have to read one of his books, often one I’ve read before (this is either my third or fourth time with Dark Reflections). He had an early career as a ...Read more
- But Who’s Counting?A Brief History of Seven Killings a novel by Marlon James. Riverhead Books. 688 pp. $17.00. **** I don’t know quite what to say about this novel, which I seem to have lived with for half my life (probably six weeks or so). It’s a massive novel about gangs in Jamaica, also the CIA in Jamaica, ...Read more
- Who Rolled this Joint?BlackkKlansman a film by Spike Lee. With John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace. *** I seem to be a minority of one, but I found this movie a major disappointment, perhaps because of my high expectations. I’m a Spike Lee fan from way back—Do the Right Thing is an old favorite—and I was looking forward ...Read more
- Or Maybe Leave a Small OneLeave No Trace a film by Debra Granik. With Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie. ***** Leave No Trace is a marvelous and heartbreaking film, certainly the best movie of the summer if not of the year so far. I’d seen the trailer five or six times and had the vague feeling this was one of those We’re-Better-Than-the-Rest-of-You ...Read more
- AddictSabbath’s Theater from Novels 1993-1995 by Philip Roth. Library of America. 842 pp. ****1/2 Where does all the bitterness come from? I kept asking myself as I read this—brilliant, in many ways—novel by Philip Roth. I understand that Roth was creating a character, that he was speaking through that character, that Mickey Sabbath is not Philip ...Read more
- Not Quite PersuadedThe Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer. Riverhead. 456 pp. $28.00 **** When I heard that Meg Wolitzer had written the first #MeToo novel, I figured that either the woman was prescient or just writes very quickly. The Female Persuasion does open with a classic #MeToo moment: the protagonist, Greer Kadetsky, has only just gotten to Ryland ...Read more
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Yes You Can Go Home AgainHow to Live Your LifeYou Need to be WritingThe Other SideThe River is Freedom, the Raft Paradise
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (198)art (110)Buddhism (163)Christianity (120)creative process (232)death and dying (128)meditation (118)movies (153)music (36)race (95)religion (181)sex (158)spirituality (168)the art of narrative (238)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)