The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon “Forget about what you are escaping from [...] Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to.“ The above quote is so central to Michael Chabon’s (pronounced SHAY-bahn, in case you’re wondering) masterful and thoroughly wonderful, Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & [...]
Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category
December 12, 2009
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Lucinda River Edition
By MDS in Fiction, Short Story“The Swimmer” by John Cheever John Cheever’s short story “The Swimmer” opens with a flowing description of alcohol and its effect on those whose Sunday mornings are particularly trying because of it: “It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, ‘I drank too much last night.’ You might have heard it [...]
November 26, 2009
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Deep South Gothic, Part 2 Edition
By MDS in Fiction, Short Story“The Lame Shall Enter First” by Flannery O’Connor Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of nine short stories that Flannery O’Connor wrote before she died in 1964 and was released posthumously a year later. In some way each story deals with themes of race, religion, and morality amongst tragically flawed characters inside of [...]
August 7, 2009
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Deep South Gothic Edition
By MDS in Fiction, Short Story“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor [Please note that this review does include spoilers.] “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” –Flannery O’Connor Before I listened to [...]
July 25, 2009
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Sex, Power And Magic In Rhode Island Edition
By MDS in Fiction, NovelThe Witches Of Eastwick by John Updike [Please note that this review does include spoilers.] The Witches Of Eastwick is my introduction to John Updike. (It was a coin toss between this and Rabbit, Run and Rabbit lost.) Without ever having read anything by Updike I knew that there was an aura about him that [...]
July 14, 2009
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Pelphase-Interphase-Gusphase, Repeat Edition
By MDS in Fiction, NovelThe Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess In The Wanting Seed, Anthony Burgess creates a world in which overpopulation has a hand in the following: babies are turned into phosphorus pentoxide; homosexuality is outright advertised by the government (complete with posters that say “It’s Sapiens to be Homo”); women are not only discouraged from getting pregnant [...]
June 14, 2009
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We Await Silent Trystero’s Empire Edition
By MDS in Fiction, NovelThe Crying Of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon The Crying Of Lot 49, to me, shares a strong similarity to Some Like It Hot–the movie that stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon–in that both have attached to it a very implicit air of importance and groundbreaking-ness. Some Like It Hot is practically universally [...]
June 10, 2009
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Let’s Do It Within The Context Provided Edition
By MDS in Fiction, NovelThe Broom Of The System by David Foster Wallace [Please note that this review does include spoilers.] Look at this painting. It is “The Slave Market With Disappearing Bust Of Voltaire” by Salvador Dali. Your eyes will most likely land on the bust of Voltaire that sits almost squarely in the middle of the painting [...]
February 17, 2009
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Footnotes Galore Edition
By MDS in Fiction, NovelInfinite Jest by David Foster Wallace I will be the first to admit that when David Foster Wallace killed himself on September 12th of last year I only vaguely knew of his name. And if you were to have asked me then if I had heard of Infinite Jest I would have most likely said [...]
May 1, 2008
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We’re Going To Maine Edition
By MDS in Fiction, Short StoryThe Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett “I see it all now as I couldn’t when I was young.” The Country of the Pointed Firs was first serialized in 1896 in The Atlantic Monthly and made a name of Sarah Orne Jewett, though her name was mostly relegated to literary and local [...]
