Stephen Dedalus on “esthetic stasis” as the “proper, esthetic emotion.” —Aristotle has not defined pity and terror. I have. I say— Lynch halted and said bluntly: —Stop! I won’t listen! I am sick. I…
Browsing Category Books
De Sade In the Hizzle and Fizzle
Huxley, author of A Brave New World, to Orwell, author of 1984. The twin totalitarian fictions of the last century. Which is being realized? Well, my take: We have been living in Huxley’s world since…
The Order of Things
Yesterday, our Sunday paper ran a usual column. Our paper reserves Sundays for the opinions of luminaries and liars–it depends on your point of view how you might class these scriveners of quotidian hierarchy. This…
Tenure Perches in the Soul
I. “Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune–without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the…
Calling the Police or Pointing the Gun
Or, If your white and wealthy, do both. Then call your lawyer. Political Science Prof Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, on C-SPAN’s After Words with S.E. Cupp….
Hate and Death and Education: Or, D. H. Lawrence in Love
Some time ago I posted that men, on the whole, hate women. I meant that. I meant it in this way, from D. H. Lawrence who was a good hater, in Women in Love. But…
Politics + Interest = Liberty?
Can you discover your own mind in the below from George Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. I’m pretty sure we’re all in there somewhere. From Chapter 51 of Middlemarch. Politics and self-interest in 1871 and…
Kissinger’s Risk
From Perry Anderson’s review of On China by Henry Kissinger in the LRB: Politically, as an attempt to force Vietnam out of Cambodia and restore Pol Pot to power, it was a complete failure. Deng,…
China On My Mind: Seeing Indiana
“Never think of a surface except as the extension of a volume…” Henry Moore (out of Rodin) quoted by Donal Hall China was forced upon me. Look, but don’t read beyond the excerpts below, unless…