book notes
Jane Eyre Movie Trailer Official HD – YouTube
Update: Though she would never have put it so indelicately, in this quote (from a letter, August 16, 1849 ), Charlotte Brönte kicks ass, with spirit and decision! I do not respect an inconsistent critic. He says, ‘if Jane Eyre be the production of a woman, she must be a woman unsexed.’ In that case [...]
The Promise/The Chosen
Image by giveawayboy via Flickr I recently read Chaim Potok‘s The Promise, and am now reading the book that preceded it, The Chosen. These are the first books by Potok I have ever read. I had never heard of Potok until a week or so ago. Then I read an article that mentioned Potok in [...]
Intellectuals 4 – what are they?
What is an intellectual? Johnson makes a clear distinction between writers, artists, men of letters on the one hand and intellectuals on the other. Of course, a person could be both, and Edmund Wilson is a good example: someone who started out as purely a writer, then became an intellectual, then gave that up and returned [...]
Intellectuals 3 – Brecht and Sartre
Intellectuals 3 – Brecht and Sartre (Part 1 here, and part 2 here.) I’ve just finished chapter 9 Sartre (I’m not blogging about Hemingway chapter 6 or Bertrand Russell chapter 8). Would you believe it? Sartre and Brecht were complete bastards, especially to their women, just like Rousseau, Shelley, Tolstoy, Ibsen and Karl Marx! (Why did [...]
Intellectuals 2 – Tolstoy
This post is about Paul Johnson’s book “Intellectuals” and follows an earlier post on the first few chapters of that book. In the chapter on Tolstoy, we read that the “great man” was, like all the others in this book so far, undoubtedly a great writer, but also an egotistical monster, a liar, an ungrateful scoundrel. [...]
Intellectuals? Bah, humbug!
In his book Intellectuals, Paul Johnson takes a close look at some key figures of modern times whose thoughts and writings have had a huge effect on people’s thinking for a long time, right down to today. Johnson examines the personal lives of these famous men (Lillian Hellman is the only female intellectual in this book), and [...]
Traders, Guns & Money
Image via Wikipedia 1987 – publication of Tom Wolfe‘s Bonfire of the Vanities. 1989 – publication of Michael Lewis‘ Liar’s Poker. 2006 – publication of Satyajit Das‘ Traders, Guns and Money. A steady stream of books by traders who can write, or writers who know something about trading. The essential message of these novels, though, [...]
C.S. Lewis biography
I’m thoroughly enjoying the biography of C.S. Lewis by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper. I’ve been reading as much of Lewis’ as I can recently, starting with re-reading all the Narnian stories (I’m teaching two of them this year), and then reading some of his literary essays and lectures, followed by Till We Have [...]
Book notes – “My Antonia”
Image via Wikipedia Here are some brief notes and quotes on reading Willa Cather‘s “My Antonia“. This is the third Willa Cather story I’ve read, all within the last month. I’m enchanted. I was inspired by this chapter from Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture, a fresh approach to literary criticism [...]
Guitar lessons for the musically hopeless
Image via Wikipedia Cleaning out my cupboards, I came across an old copy of this great teach-yourself book: Country and Blues Guitar for the Musically Hopeless It’s simple, encouraging, full of humour that adds to and does not detract from the purpose of the book. Some great songs. Carol McComb gets you singing after learning [...]
