Failure, Tragedy, & Comedy, (and a little about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”)
Thoughts on Seymour Krim and George W. S. Trow that probably fail to illuminate the uses of comedy and tragedy.
Category: Sunday
Sunday Morning! “Othello” by William Shakespeare
Is Iago a psychopath? Or is patriarchy the real killer in this story?
Sunday Morning! “Napoleon” by Ridley Scott
A film that vividly depicts the great battles of the Napoleonic Wars, while showing the “great man” at their center as a big baby. I call it “emo Napo”.
Sunday Morning! “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare
While it’s tempting to see “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare as a gentle story about forgiveness, love, and magic, its central protagonist makes that interpretation very difficult.
Sunday Morning! “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s play about political speech and the violence that underlies it raises questions about Caesar and democracy that we’ll likely never answer fully.
Sunday Morning! “The Tragedy of Macbeth” by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Macbeth: The story of a man who aspired to be a monster, and forgot he would only be a man for a brief time.
Sunday Morning! King Lear by William Shakespeare
Returning to it after a few decades, I realize how nightmarish is Shakespeare’s vision of human frailty, madness, and tissue-thin political power.
Sunday Morning! Richard III by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Richard III is a useful reminder of how difficult it is to live under a truly malevolent man when power is centralized in his hands. As if one was needed.
Sunday Morning! “Never Come Morning” by Nelson Algren
It’s hard to transmogrify work and poverty into art. Never Come Morning, by Nelson Algren, probably did accomplish that feat…
Sunday Morning! What is Literature? A little on Sven Birkerts
We now interrupt your scheduled arrival for a brief existential crisis. (Or, maybe, it’s just like that for me.)
Sunday Morning! Richard Hambleton
If living in this world nearly overwhelmed Richard Hambleton, his paintings still have the power to nearly overwhelm this world.
Sunday Morning! “Twist: an American Girl” by Adele Bertei
In Adele Bertei’s novelistic memoir, a Dickensian waif survives a rough childhood and recreates herself as a queer “stud,” a poet, and a performer through the saving grace of music.
Sunday Morning! A Tale of Two Novels
A recent book on the art world did not exactly rock mine. But “Leaving Brooklyn” from 1989- that’s the one you’ve gotta read.
Sunday Morning! “Wild Strawberries”
If you haven’t seen a Bergman picture, I’d start with Wild Strawberries. It’s one of his most accessible masterworks, and its reputation has grown since its release 1957.
Sunday Morning! The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
In his highly lauded novel “The Underground Railroad,” Colson Whitehead, rewires the creaky old machinery of the novel and finds it still able of reaching surprising new depths.
Sunday Morning! “Katalin Street” by Magda Szabó
Magda Szabó published Katalin Street 20 years before The Door, and 10 years after being rehabilitated as a former “enemy of the state.”
Sunday Morning! “Chéri” and “La Fin de Chéri” by Colette
This seems to be how Colette wrote her masterpiece novellas: Chéri and The End of Chéri: she had these two characters in mind
Sunday Morning! “The Door” by Magda Szabó
They always judge you. On Hungarian writer Magda Szabó’s haunting novel about a housekeeper who loves and persecutes her employer in equal measure.
Sunday Morning! “What is Art?” by Leo Tolstoy
We’re not all Christian anarchists like Leo Tolstoy, but he’s not exactly wrong about how art eases our sense of isolation.
Sunday Morning! Leonora Carrington, the Complete Stories
Like fairy tales for mad children, the stories of Leonora Carrington are as packed with strangeness and complete imaginative freedom as her paintings.
