Let’s face it, Ernest Hemingway does everything right, so I could focus on a variety of qualities in his writing and gain insight. But for the purpose of this post, I am giving my attention to his use of theme, so I am turning to the high school standard read The Old Man and the…
Time links past with present Harper Lee had quite a task creating the narrative voice of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Sure Scout was a six-year-old girl who ages about two years in the course of the book; what’s the challenge? Seems easy enough — in that short span of years there is not…
John Steinbeck wrote for and about the guy next door, the man that works to pay the bills at the end of the month, for the poor cuss who hopes and hopes even when hope is lost, and loses and loses, even when he wins. Tortilla Flat He moved slowly and cautiously. Now and…
Door to the inside of a monster John Gardner’s Grendel is a work of delight and derangement cluttered in one diabolical monster’s mind. It is poetry garbed in prose, sophistry hiding behind a misunderstood, disadvantaged descendent of Cain. Gardner slips his monster into the reader, building sympathy and support as the beast twists its words…
Amber: imbedding strong images You know those images that stick with you long after the work has been shelved or sunk beneath a mountain of new impressions? The ones you can read over and over and feel the gritty texture, smell the burning tang, see the vivid stain…that quality of capturing a moment precisely, the…
Reading a Connie Willis novel is like drowning. Her very first paragraph is a rip tide that lets you get a breath just often enough not to drown you. You spend a lot of time treading water, but the liquid feels so lovely against your skin, a blood warm suspension, and you pray for breath…
