Late in his life, T.S. Eliot took to writing plays in verse. I don’t know why; he was never going to be a great playwright. But, I guess when you are famous, you can do whatever you want. A couple of his plays have some amazing bits in them. Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party both work well if you think of them as verse in play form. That is entirely different from being great plays, though. A couple of his plays are not good verse or play, containing rather a few scattered … [Read more...] about A Second-Rate Potter
Great Books
The Moral of the Story
I finally read Little Women. This is one of those books I heard about a lot as a kid, but never read. It looked long. Very long. And it was, after all, about girls. When I was young, I did, however, read Little House on the Prairie. The whole series! Combined, Little House is an even longer book about girls. So, why the difference? I suspect it was partly due to the fact that the Little House books are shorter individual volumes and partly that there was an enormously popular TV series … [Read more...] about The Moral of the Story
Dickens in America
In 1842, C. Dickens sailed the ocean blue and landed in America. Then he wrote a book about his journeys, cleverly titled American Notes. This is not a well-read Dickens’ volume. For good reason. Charitably, it is an uneven book. Uncharitably, it is a pointless ramble punctuated with some interesting things here and there. Dickens lands in Boston, heads south to Washington, then west to Cincinnati and the Great Plains, northeast by the Great Lakes into Canada, and then back down to … [Read more...] about Dickens in America
Marriage is What Brings Us Together
Here is a controversial statement: Marriage is an important source of happiness for most people. Once upon a time, that statement would have elicited a yawn. It is akin to a “people need food to live” variety of comment. Nowadays, however, them’s fightin’ words on a college campus and many other places beyond the gates. Hold that thought. That Jane Austen is wildly popular is a truth universally acknowledged. Why? I have been puzzling about devotion to Austen for years. After all, she is … [Read more...] about Marriage is What Brings Us Together
Childhood Wonders
“Growing up spoiled a lot of things.” Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an examination of that thesis. A novel (presumably semi-autobiographical) of a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the mid-20th century, it is a very pleasant read about a bygone era. Historical bildungsromans are a genre unto themselves. Most of them are told as something akin to “How the caterpillar became a butterfly.” Set it in a romantic era with some charming historical details and a few funny relatives, … [Read more...] about Childhood Wonders
Want Some Advice?
“Should I read Persuasion?” you ask. How shall I reply? It is rare that a book creates such a problem of recommendation. The novel is, as you know, by Jane Austen. Generally speaking, it is always a simple matter to recommend Austen. Pride and Prejudice is a serious candidate for Best Novel Ever. So, presumably if someone can write the Greatest Novel of All Time, the rest of her output is at least minimally worth reading. Right? Ah, but can I answer that? Now only a churlish sort of … [Read more...] about Want Some Advice?