Girl By the Road at Night: Misery Writ Small
Girl By the Road at Night (2010) by David Rabe, a highly praised playwright and author of several other novels, …
Category Archives: Art & Culture
Platoon: Americans In Vietnam
With a trip to Vietnam a few months ahead of me I’ve been running old movies and new books through …
Novel Without A Name: of Vietnam, A Man, A Country and A War
Beginning to prepare for a February trip to South East Asia I do what I always do — read. What …
Oblomov: The Greatest Russian Novel You’ve Never Heard Of
1842 to 1880: what a forty years for readers of literary masterworks! Beginning with Gogol’s Dead Souls and ending with …
Just and Unjust Wars: Just and Unjust Combatants: The Theory
Despite being an adult-long pacator I’ve never paid too much attention to Just War Theory. Being brought up by Roman Catholics I …
Private Empire: ExxonMobil and Power by Steve Coll
The London Review of Books [8 Nov, 2012] reviews Steve Coll’s new, indispensable volume, Private Empire: ExxonMobile and Power. Coll will be …
Under Fire: A French Novel of WW I Trenches
Although All Quiet on the Western Front is the best known, and possibly the best written, novel of soldiers …
Skyfall: Welcome to Scotland — the Latest James Bond Caper
What can I say? I’m not one for action thrillers, have never been to a Conan the Schwarzenegger movie. Runaway trucks on …
The First Grader: Multiple Inspirations in this British-Kenyan Film
The First Grader (2010) by director Justin Chadwick of The Other Boleyn Girl, sells itself as the inspiring story of Kimani N’gan’ga Maruge [Oliver …
A Farewell to Arms, or Not? WW I Through American Eyes
Pop the question: “WW I fiction?” and 10 out of 10 who have an answer at all will say “A …
An Enemy of the People — Where Was He in the Drug Compounding Scandal?
I watched Henrik Ibsen’s 1888 blockbuster play, Enemy of the People, last night in the 1971 BBC version, having been …
To End All Wars: A Movie: A Moral Claim: Mercy Unimaginable
To End All Wars, 2001, by David L Cunningham is a film I might normally recommend for all the typical filmic reasons: …