January 2013
THIS IS NOT A FILM & A SEPARATION Salmagundi 
December 2012
THE POWER AND THE ALLEGORY Bookforum A book of interviews captures the life and times of Madeleine L'Engle.
October 2012
PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD) Salmagundi
04 October 2012
THE IDENTITY CRISIS OF ZADIE SMITH The New Republic In college, Zadie Smith began to lose her voice. When she "went up" to Cambridge--the British use a phrase suggesting ascension for enrollment at university--from the working-class neighborhood in northwest London where she grew up, she picked up a new way of speaking, "along with the unabridged Clarissa and a taste for port."
03 October 2012
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS: J.K. ROWLING'S SECOND ACT The New Republic It's not Harry Potter--let's just get that out of the way first. The Casual Vacancy is so different from J.K. Rowling's mega-selling children's book series that one wonders if Rowling deliberately tried to make her first novel for adults conform as little as possible to her readers' expectations.
30 July 2012
IMP OF THE PERVERSE The New Yorker In the summer of 1939, the writer Witold Gombrowicz set sail from Poland, on the ocean liner Chrobry, on what he thought would be a brief mission as a cultural ambassador to the Polish community in Argentina.
06 July 2012
GROWING UP IN THE RUBBLE The Wall Street Journal The ordeals of Poland's Jews during World War II are now well-known. But what happened afterward to those who were lucky enough to return is not nearly so carefully chronicled or broadly familiar.
May 2012
THE PARTY'S OVER Bookforum The rise and fall of Communist playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman.
18 April 2012
HOW A NEW CLIP OF ANNE FRANK'S LIFE BRINGS US CLOSER TO HER DEATH The New Republic The video lasts all of twenty seconds. We see the doorway of a nondescript apartment building, several stories high, and neighbors above peering curiously down. A newlywed couple proceed down the steps: The groom wears a top hat and formal suit, the bride carries a lavish bouquet. The camera pans up, and there she is, instantly recognizable. It's Anne Frank.
04 April 2012
WHY THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE CONTINUES TO DISADVANTAGE WOMEN The New Republic Watching the outpouring of grief and reflection over the death of Adrienne Rich last week, I admit, to my shame, that I was surprised. Surprised not because of any judgment about Rich's poetry, which I barely know, but because I had thought of her as an icon of another era.
21 March 2012
SOME WORKS OF ART CAN'T BE LABELED AS FACT OR FICTION, AND THAT'S OK The New Republic Like wolves and teenagers, literary scandals travel in packs, and the first of the spring are already upon us.
07 March 2012
WAS 'FRANKENSTEIN' REALLY ABOUT CHILDBIRTH? The New Republic Frankenstein is one of the great creation myths of all time: a scientist, drunk on knowledge and possibility, discovers the secret of animating matter and energizes a monstrous creature, which proceeds to wreak havoc on his life and that of everyone he loves. Perhaps inevitably, the novel has engendered its own creation myth, one that is nearly as uncanny as the tale of the monster itself.
22 February 2012
NO BOOK WILL FIX WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICAN PARENTING The New Republic The other day, a friend and I were walking down a crowded sidewalk when we noticed a little boy of about three. We noticed him not because he was adorable (though he was), but because he was hitting his father with a giant stick.
17 February 2012 WHEN RISKY IS RIGHT The Wall Street Journal When evil or corruption are the status quo, what is it that moves some individuals -- defying the pressure to conform -- to do good deeds? Eyal Press considers four case studies in "Beautiful Souls."
08 February 2012
A REQUIEM TO AN AGE OF BRILLIANT POLISH POETRY The New Republic Poland in the postwar era was a supremely unlucky nation, but in one respect (and perhaps one only) it was among the world's luckiest. This unassuming country produced three of the greatest European poets of the last half-century.
29 January 2012
LOST GIRL The Daily I used to read Caitlin Flanagan's articles with the same mixture of fascination and dread that I might have felt, in high school, upon discovering the diary of a person who particularly disliked me open to a page detailing all my own shortcomings.
25 January 2012
THE TRUE LIES OF TOTALITARIAN NORTH KOREA The New Republic When the videos of North Koreans weeping hysterically in the streets of Pyongyang circulated on YouTube last month in the wake of Kim Jong-il's death, few Western onlookers knew what to make of them.
20 January 2012
REVISITING SHAKESPEARE'S 'CORIOLANUS' The New York Times Magazine Some women swoon for swashbuckling Antony or bodice-ripping Othello, but I've always had a soft spot for prideful, imperious Coriolanus. Next to Shakespeare's other tragic figures, who sometimes sound like Freudian case studies, he comes across as downright noble.
11 January 2012
WAIT, IS MIRANDA JULY'S BOOK FICTION OR NON-FICTION? The New Republic If the whole project is essentially voyeuristic, though, July's generous, sincere interest in the human condition makes up for it somewhat. She laments that the modern city, especially L.A., is designed to preclude random encounters: "If someone isn't in my house or in my car we'll never be together, not even for a moment."
30 December 2011
LITERARY RESOLUTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR The New Republic Last year, I gave the traditional New Year's resolutions a literary spin by resolving to become a better reader in 2011. Now it's time to take stock. Did I keep my promises? And what should I resolve to do this year? |
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