America taught Hitler that need blurred into desire, and that desire arose from comparison. . . . Families observed other families: around the corner, but also, thanks to modern media, around the world. . . . “Through modern technology and the communication it enables,” wrote Hitler, “international relations between peoples have become so effortless and… Continue reading Restoring the middle class
Category: William Faulkner
The unvanquished
Last night we bought a bed. Before we did, we had a date. The salmon was as good as I’ve ever had. It lay on a wonderful reduction. She had trout crusted with parmesan and ate it all. Our waiter was an older man, and he was busy. But he had us say our names.… Continue reading The unvanquished
To have more talk
To take only prescriptively Deuteronomy’s command to talk is to see ourselves becoming only founts (or, worse, spouts) of scripture. But if we go with the action verbs, which I think are indicative rather than exclusive, we’d find a context for deliberate talk in the things we do every day: sit, walk, lie down, get up. (Note: we don’t buzz.) When we add deliberate talk to our daily talk – that is, to the kind talk we do anyway when we do other things we do, then the words work themselves into and enrich our days. The words move from theory, if you will, to practice. We reinvent the words we speak and even quote, and they become our own.
The beauty of sex
I stayed up very late over the last two nights finishing James Salter’s 1967 novel A Sport and a Pastime. It may be the most beautiful novel I’ve ever read. It’s about sex. It’s about how sex intersects with human nature inside and outside the sexual relationship. I think its beauty stems from how the sex… Continue reading The beauty of sex
A car beam
When I grow up, I want to write like this: A car beam — like something sprayed out of a hose — lights up the room he is in, and he pauses once again in mid-step, seeing that same woman’s eyes on him, a man moving on top of her, his fingers in her blonde… Continue reading A car beam
Tom Jones, moderate
A number of my friends remember various critical childhood summers or winters during which they discovered a private library belonging to family or a friend. In my version of this common tale, the setting was my ninth grade winter, and the protagonist was Tom Jones. Fielding’s experimental novel stood out as one of the few… Continue reading Tom Jones, moderate
The language
Most of the books I’ve read in the past three years I last read long ago. Four Quartets is an exception: I started rereading it a decade ago. But it’s typical – even a fugleman – of these books in another respect: I didn’t understand it when I read it in college, but I loved… Continue reading The language
Studdy to be quyet
Because some men study to have learning rather than to live well, they err many times, and bring forth little good fruit or none. — The Imitation of Christ I like the feel of the purposeful study that Thomas à Kempis recommends to his fellow monks, at least as it comes across here in Harold… Continue reading Studdy to be quyet
Book group literary theory
I love Faulkner and I love Merton. I learned recently that Merton loved Faulkner and said this about him: His novels and stories are far more prophetic in the Biblical sense than the writings of any theologian writing today (at least, any that I know!). Merton was contemplating writing a book on Faulkner’s work, but… Continue reading Book group literary theory