William Faulkner and WW I: A Fable
Since I’ve been sparse in posting these last weeks, for various (all good) reasons, I thought I’d re-post this look …
Category Archives: Fiction
1914: Slender Novel, Big War
Although Jean Echenoz is both widely read and a winner of multiple literary prizes in France you’d have to …
The Great Swindle: Opportunities in France, 1919
Pierre Lemaitre has won a substantial following both in his native France and abroad for writing crime fiction. His Commandant Camille …
Naples Liberated: Curzio Malaparte’s “The Skin”
It is hard to think of another work of fiction of such savage irony as Curzio Malaparte‘s La Pelle (1949) …
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
If you’ve never read anything about life in the trenches during World War One, Birdsong: A Novel of Love and …
Xiao Hong — Women in Rural China
Some months ago I saw The Golden Era, a recent movie by Ann Hui about a ground breaking Chinese woman writer …
The First Casualty – A WW I Conscientious Objector as Sleuth
Ben Elton’s 2012 mystery, The First Casualty, is a fine combination of two popular literary genres: men at war and …
Parade’s End — Benedict Cumberbatch as England’s Last Tory
The 5 hour HBO/BBC mini-series, Parade’s End, (2012) with Benedict Cumberbatch as Christopher Tietjens, is a miracle of lossless compression, …
The Comedy of Charleroi – Courage and Cowardice in WW I
“The captain … was due to retire in October. In the very first burst of fire he was swept out …
The Golden Era — A Writing Woman in Occupied China
Ann Hui, the prolific Hong Kong director, not well known in the United States, adds a serious biopic of Chinese …
A Classic from Poland – “The Doll” by Boleslaw Prus
The most unusual book in my reading universe this year has to be the 1890 Polish classic, The Doll (“Lalka”) …
It All Matters
We got one of the best seasonal cards, ever, this week. Simple black text on a fir-green card. It all …