You were the one who imagined it all, All those years ago. – George Harrison This essay was originally written for EXPLORATIONS, and is dedicated to its editor, Maurice DuQuesnay: devoted guardian of the flame. …
I got my back to the sun ’cause the light is too intense I can see what everybody in the world is up against – Sugar Baby The Nobel Prize for Literature at last has been awarded to the most important and most influential author of the post-World War II era. …
“If I Were Determined To Get a Rich Husband”: Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Austen, and the Life of the Common Human Routine ‘Your plan is a good one, where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married; and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I …
“Who Made Me?”: The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill -The question “Who Made Me?” cannot be answered. A version of this essay first appeared in Prose Studies (London, Frank Cass), v. 5, September 1982, No. 2. WordPress does not support footnotes. I have attached a link following the essay’s conclusion. The link will take you …
Wicked Prey by John Sandford G.P. Putnam’s Sons (May, 2009) The Literature of John Sandford The essential American soul is hard, stoic, isolate, and a killer. – D.H. Lawrence Western civilizations distinguish rigorously between what we usually term serious or high art, such as literary novels, poetry, and drama, classical painting and sculpture, classical music, …
Mill, Freud, and God: The Combatant Cultures of Modernist Life What sacrilege one commits against the splendid diversity of human life if one recognizes only those motives which arise from material needs. – Freud, Moses and Monotheism A version of this essay first appeared in Explorations: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Ann B. Dobie. …
It sometimes seemed to him that there was an invisible hand behind it all, and it wasn’t a beneficent hand. Evil in the world. John Sandford’s twentieth novel in the wonderful chronicles of Lucas Davenport is called Storm Prey. In a multitude of ways, it’s an extraordinary extension of this superb series. The …
I try my best to be just like I am But everybody wants you to be just like them They say sing while you slave and I jus’ get bored I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. -Bob Dylan A man named Harold Slovic passed away in March 2021. He met his death …
The original version of this essay was written for Explorations (Flora Levy Foundation, University of Louisiana-Lafayette) as a review of Laughter Before Sleep, by Robert Pack (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2011). Page references appear in parentheses following citations. I was born here and I’ll die here against my will I know it …
