Against Against Theory
In this article, we’ll summarize and critique the main arguments in Knapp and Michaels’ 1982 paper Against Theory.
Examining Ethan Canin’s Prose
Today we’ll examine something I think Ethan Canin does well: description. Description is one of those things that is very hard to get right. I think this is because it is difficult to notice when someone has done a good job. Bad description jumps out; good description goes unnoticed. Description Prose Style Everyone notices an … Read more
Don Quixote: Summary, Meaning, Review
Don Quixote is Miguel de Cervantes giant novel that I’m using to kick off my “Year of Giant Novels.” This will be my thoughts on it. Preliminaries Back in my youth, I used to love reading giant novels: Infinite Jest, Underworld, Gravity’s Rainbow, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, Les Misérables, etc. There are still quite … Read more
Thoughts on Björk’s Vulnicura
Björk has been quite a polarizing figure throughout the years. I used to absolutely love her music in the early 2000s. My History with Björk’s Music I thought Vespertine was a brilliant culmination in all the ideas she had been exploring. It was an album with palpable emotional output. It pushed the boundaries of accompaniment … Read more
Is Twitter our Penal Colony?
I know that’s quite the inflammatory title, so I’ll explain it upfront. I recently read Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony. If you haven’t read it, go do it. I liked The Trial and The Metamorphosis, but neither compares to the true horror that is In the Penal Colony. In the Penal Colony Plot Summary … Read more
David Lynch, Inland Empire, and the Fourth Wall
I rewatched Inland Empire recently and was surprised to find that it wasn’t as confusing as I initially thought. I hadn’t watched it in probably eight years, but I remember my initial reaction: this is nonsense. I loved Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, so I was no stranger to Lynch’s style and bizarre narrative structures. … Read more
The Stories of John Cheever Reviewed and Explained
This lengthy article dives into my experiences with several of John Cheever’s most famous short stories. A Word on Stories I have a confession. I don’t get why John Cheever’s short stories are so loved. If you look at my past blog posts, you’ll see that I could pontificate for hours on the greatness of … Read more
Examining Philip Roth’s Prose
Today we’ll examine the prose of Philip Roth. Roth is one of my favorite prose stylists, and I’m not sure it will be possible to convey why by analyzing a brief section of writing. This is because my favorite part of his style is how he drops profound sentences in the middle of ordinary paragraphs, … Read more
Examining Jonathan Franzen’s Prose
I started this series back in May, but it fell off after critiquing Mislaid. I still had a few writers I wanted to examine, and since Jonathan Franzen was one of them and I just finished Purity, now is as good a time as any to pick it back up. Prose Style of Jonathan Franzen … Read more
Analyzing the Second Section of Franzen’s Purity
This article is an analysis of what Jonathan Franzen does in the second section of his 2015 novel Purity. The Rosetta Stone A year and a half ago I wrote a post explaining how David Foster Wallace’s short story/novella “Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way” was a parody of Barth’s “Lost in the … Read more