Sep13
What do Woody Allen and Nadine Gordimer have in common?
They are both so famous that anything they do gets out to the public. No vetting; no editing. Yet To Rome With Love, Allen’s cinematic paean to yet another world-famous city is worth seeing. And No Time Like The Present, Gordimer’s stream...
Sep13
“Jewish Nose” as plot device?
I refer here to a primary plot device in Nathan Englander’s The Ministry of Special Cases, a novel about the terror of the Argentine military dictatorship, 1976-83, as its minions roam the neighborhoods to gather up and “disappear” the...
Sep03
ONE MORE THRILLER . . . as the summer draws to a close
Istanbul Passage, by Joseph Kanon. I like this guy’s work, though as with all mysteries for me, the plots fade. I especially loved Kanon’s Los Alamos, of which I remember only the hothouse atmosphere around the scientists and their wives,...
Aug30
CHILE AS ALLENDE FALLS
Plus Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia and East Berlin. How often do you find a novel that rolls through all these geographic locations? “The Neruda Case,” by Roberto Ampuero is a thriller of sorts by an established Chilean novelist. This is the first...
Aug30
Add “Campaign” to Stewart, Colbert, Kamau Bell…
GOOD MOVIE FOR THIS POLITICAL SEASON Have you ever seen a movie meant to entertain, and then, to your surprise, the politics turn out to be radical indeed? V is for Vendetta, was like that for me, and now, years later, the Guy Fawkes masks are a prominent...
Aug06
Cartoons as Literature?
Well, yes, even if, like me, you are NOT a fan of Captain Marvel. Try out Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? Bechdel manages to do all of the following with
Jul30
Left-Wing Literature Alert
The Outer Fringe Are you are a bit obsessed with the left political movement of the sixties and seventies, as I am? If so, American Woman, by Susan Choi, is the novel for you! Remember the Symbionese Liberation Army? The murder of Marcus Foster,...
Jul30
A Movie About Climate Change
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD … is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen! A remnant of Louisiana culture resists mandatory evacuation from the part of the state that is sinking back into the sea. Our six-year old heroine, Hush Puppy, understands...
Jul19
Message from the Edge
Daily Life in the Third Reich Hans Fallada, in Every Man Dies Alone, takes us into the moment-to-moment reality of life in Berlin, 1942, when Hitler is claiming victory in France, but bombs are starting to fall in the city. This is not a book about...
Jul11
A Tale of Two Thrillers, or What to Read on Vacation
Vacations are for mysteries, at least in my life, so recently I have read two thrillers: “The Expats,” by Chris Pavone, and “Mission Song,” by John Le Carre. It’s not easy to compare favorably to Le Carre, who is a master...
