A travel article (who in N.O. talks of “the Big Easy”?) . . . and realized, once again, that there’s no better place to find Walker Percy than inside the pages of his many dazzling novels, which I’d fallen in love with years ago. a confederacy of duncesJohn Kennedy TooleLiteratureLouisiananew orleansphilosophical literatureTennessee Williamsthe moviegoerTruman CapoteWalker Percywilliam…
The very excellent Paul Oswell reports. Literaturenew orleansPaul Oswellshelby footeTennessee WilliamstheatreWalker Percy
Now this is what I call a teacher — the teacher happens to be Toole’s biographer. a confederacy of duncesCory MacLauchlinJohn Kennedy TooleLiteratureteaching
Another Shannon Selin story this time from Commuter Lit, based on a historical incident in 1807 Montreal. As two of the comments rightly say: I love all the historical details woven in without making it sound like a history text book. A vivid glimpse into a particular time and place. Very interesting story. I had no…
Here’s a very well-researched and subtly executed short story. alternative historyFictionhistorical fictionLiteratureNapoleonnapoleon bonaparteshannon selin
Three very warm reviews of Olivia Laing’s The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink. Olivia Laing’s . . . book takes its title from a line in Tennessee Williams’s play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It’s an apt phrase for a book about writers and alcoholism, with its combined dose of the sublime…
Yet another literary loss. Leonard was of course a NOLA boy. Leonard, like Toole, had a gift for rendering localized dialogue, one of the reasons his work translated quite well into film. Elmore LeonardGet ShortyJackie BrownJohn Kennedy TooleLiteraturePhilosophy
This event could be interesting if like me you enjoy the intersection of the philosophical and the literary. Murdoch was of course a paramour of Oakeshott’s (see Bob Grant’s essay) and it is said based the character of Hugo Belfounder from Under the Net on Oakeshott. This is highly contentious and will never be satisfactorily resolved…
Listen to T.S.E. here. A little known fact, at least amongst those who come to TSE through his poetry, is that T.S.E. wrote his doctoral dissertation on F.H. Bradley, a copy of which I read some 25 years ago. Here is an article on the relationship between T.S.E. and Russell. F. H. BradleyLiteratureLove Song of…
Here’s a recent article referring to Joshua Landy’s very interesting work. Check out his just released book How to Do Things with Fictions. This blurb alone is recommendation enough: Witty and approachable, How to Do Things with Fictions challenges the widespread assumption that literary texts must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real…
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