Light On Dark Water

Books

  • 52 Authors, Week 5: Henri de Lubac

    Having spent over five years of my life on a close reading of de Lubac, it is going to be hard for me to keep this post to a reasonable size. There is so much I can say! Because it seems that part of the point of this series is to elicit in others a…

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  • 52 Authors: A Nudge

    I'd like to draw your attention to the schedule, which is in its entirety: January 5: D'Anna – Percy O'Connor January 12: Janet – Howard January 19: El Gaucho – Rushdie January 26: Rob G – Helprin February 2: Robert Gotcher – de Lubac You'll observe immediately that only one of those dates is in…

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  • 52 Authors, Week 4: Mark Helprin

    I first became acquainted with Mark Helprin’s fiction in the late 90s, when for some unrecalled reason I picked up a copy of his novel Memoir From Antproof Case. I absolutely loved the mix of humor and pathos, delivered in a fairly madcap but very well-drawn narrative, and to top it all off, I thought…

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  • 52 Authors, Week 3: Salman Rushdie

    It is not necessary to know very much about India and Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims, or have any working knowledge of their languages and dialects to find Salman Rushdie’s books enjoyable–simply a love of literature, and the beautiful writing that can be accomplished with the English language. Take this opening section from Midnight’s Children: One…

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  • 52 Authors, Week 2: Thomas Howard

    Then where I bode alone with a small band I prayed unto the cross, with blithesome heart, enduring courage. My soul was yearning for its journey hence. Too many a weary hour have I abode. Now have I hope of life, that I may seek that victor-tree, revere it well more oft than all men, Wherefore…

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  • 52 Authors, Week 1: Flannery O’Connor

    When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and…

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  • 52 Authors Update

    Ok, I got the first entries in the schedule–see the link in the sidebar, or just click here. I'm going to use the Sunday of the week as the target date. It would be nice if you could get me your pieces a few days before the Sunday, in case I have trouble formatting it or…

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  • 52 Authors?

    Here it is almost December, and the much-anticipated year-long 52 Authors festival, a reader-requested sequel to 52 Guitars, should begin in about a month. But will it? Are the people who signed up so enthusiastically back in July still committed? The literary world waits breathlessly.  I was thinking we had one or two commitments for specific weeks,…

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  • Frank McCourt: Angela’s Ashes

    I am on record as saying I don't care much for stories of static, hopeless suffering. I didn't  have to know much about this book to be pretty sure it was one of those, and I have recently learned that it is in fact honored as a classic of misery literature. I would never have read…

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  • The Condition of the Humanities

    Coincidentally, in relation to our discussion of the situation of the humanities in contemporary education, this piece on that very subject appears in The New Criterion. It's by Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory. He argues–if I may allow myself an over-simplified summary–that the academics who should be fighting to preserve the place of the humanities,…

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