“Flannery O’Connor’s fiction also explores this distinctly Southern paradox through the symbol of the “old child”. Like Faulkner, she creates child characters who are disillusioned by the inactivity and lack of belief in their parent’s generation and subsequently construct their identity on the model of an elderly figure, only to suffer a tug of loyalties
Browsing category books
I can’t remember the first book trailer I saw. But I know it was in late 2005/early 2006 – and consisted of a series of quirky photos set to music and subtitles with a note on the end that went something like Coming in May 2006. Well, they kept coming and these days some rival
The Guardian asks you to write the first 150 words of a novel for the chance to win a hotel stay in London with Orange award ceremony tickets, books and a Blackberry The Guardian has teamed with Kate Mosse, the author of Labyrinth and co-founder and honorary director of the Orange prize, to offer budding
I’ve always wondered about the man’s mannerisms. This doesn’t quite satisfy that curiosity but it’s more than I ever thought I’d see. True, I’ve had a vague but incessant obsession with the lettered curmudgeon since reading Innocents Abroad some time back in the 90’s, but I can’t be alone in finding this little piece of
Free online Yale video lectures for: Milton A study of Milton’s poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry. The American Novel Since 1945 The reading list includes works by Richard Wright, Flannery O’Connor, Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, J. D.
One of the things I loved about the University of Manchester were the special collections (which date back to the 3rd millennium BC) held by the John Rylands Libraries. Stateside, Princeton University Library is digitising its rare books. Their latest addition is the Islamic Manuscripts Collection. The University Library holds approximately 9,500 Islamic manuscripts in
“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.” – A Temple of the Holy Ghost, Flannery O’Connor More than any other American fiction writer of her time, her influence has gone beyond literature to the realm of American popular culture. Tommy Lee Jones, who
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” I don’t know about you, but the opening line of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis colours my view of the entire book. Whenever someone asks me to review it or just ‘tell me what you think
It’s 2:00 a.m. I’m downstairs. In the dark. In my husband’s pajamas. Microwaving milk. Most of you will be able to pull an image from that. But unless you’re a genuine, long suffering, insomniac, you won’t really appreciate the moment or how it felt or how very much it resembled a Charlie Kaufman adaptation. And
In Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro does such a brilliant job with first person narration – realistic, casual, conversationalist – that he completely lulls the reader into a false sense of something. Not security, necessarily, but something. And that false sense of something is more telling than the story itself. It’s Ishiguru’s genius. His
Dear Flynn, I agree. It is a mite on the impolite side to turn down a generosity like sausage. Also, if you grew up in West Virginia in the 80s, you’re kinda like a war baby. Rations and all. Force of habit. I ate a crooked crumpet smothered in full fat maple syrup last night
Moments of mysterious silence. ALL SILENT. And then it’s gone. Leaving everyone wondering and feeling a weird sense of loss. Like someone or something had jerked them away from a warm light they didn’t know they were moving toward. It seems appropriate and eerie that I should read Kevin Brockmeier’s “The Year of Silence” today.
