Posted on: April 7, 2009
Donald Barthelme
Just starting the new biography of one of my favorite writers, Donald Barthelme. It’s entitled, Hiding Man, and reads well. The author, Tracy Daugherty, was a former student of Barthelme’s, and seems to have a real feel for him, for his place in American letters, and his father’s place in his son’s artistic development. Donald Barthelme Sr was an architect, and his influence on his son, on all his children, appears to have been profound. Daugherty talks about his impact in a way that echoes Rodin’s influence on Rilke. Hard work, careful, intensely thoughtful compositions, the creation of usable space, concentrating on form and utility to make art. Dedication to aesthetics, functionality, balance and harmony.
Donald Barthelme’s birthday was yesterday. He was born in 1931, in Philadelphia. He died of cancer in 1989. I have just about everything he ever wrote, and return with delight to his works, especially his short stories collected in Sixty Stories, often.…
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Posted on: April 5, 2009
Stefan Zweig
I was quite wrong about where I thought Beware of Pity was heading. At the halfway point, I noticed little if any sexual tension between the lieutenant and Edith, the crippled young woman he befriended. That changes quickly after the mid-way point. Her sudden expression of love for Toni alters the course of the novel, and the life of many of the main characters. It’s a key to subsequent events, every bit as important as pity.
Zweig does an excellent job conveying something we often forget. That people are never who they seem to be at first glance. Often, they aren’t the same people we think they are after several glances. Toni’s commanding officer, Colonel Bubencic, for instance, proves himself worthy of respect and appreciation very late in the novel, even though he is seen as a “martinet” early on, and disliked intensely by most of the regiment.…
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Posted on: April 1, 2009
Spring Comes to Lake Shanghai, by Wu Li. 17th Century
It’s been a long winter. Like winter would never leave. Ever leave. Even though it was fairly mild where I live, the mood was winter for a long time. The mind of winter. The soul of cold. Perhaps it’s the state of the world. The economy. The cultural and political fights. Endless and ultimately boring. Perhaps. That said, spring is here and just in nick of time.
By the way, who is this Nick character and what did he do with Chronos?
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We have two new sets of poems on tap: Doreen LeBlanc and Sean Howard grace our pages again.
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