I read The Girl of the Sea of Cortez as a comprise. I have always been fascinated with Peter Benchley’s novel The Deep; at least, I think I will like reading it. I haven’t read it, but I saw the Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset movie, about a couple vacation in Bermuda. Being scuba divers,… Continue reading The Girl of the Sea of Cortez by Peter Benchley
Category: The American Novel
American literature, American fiction, American novel, contemporary fiction, Classic fiction
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Though I know there are several wonderful stories with animal protagonists, I tend not to read them. I guess I suffer from a homo sapiens prejudice when it comes to literature. I want the stories I read to be about people. I confess this is a narrow, distorted view of the world, one that I… Continue reading The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Since I had read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) before reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), I first met Tom Sawyer in that novel. It wasn’t a welcome meeting. Towards the end of the story, Tom played a game that almost cost Jim, the runaway slave, his life. Tom considered it great fun,… Continue reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Oil! by Upton Sinclair
I had high hopes for Oil! by Upton Sinclair. Theses hopes rested in part on There Will Be Blood (2007), a movie based on the novel, a movie I loved. But the film, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, shares the “idea” of Sinclair’s novel, but not its plot. Yet… Continue reading Oil! by Upton Sinclair
The Spy Novel: Cooper’s The Spy
We all love a good spy novel. At least, I know I love espionage thrillers. I have already reviewed several on this blog, including Red Sparrow, The Rhythm Section, and Leaving Berlin. The spy has always been part of Western literature. In Homer’s Iliad, there is a book dedicated to Odysseus and Diomedes as they… Continue reading The Spy Novel: Cooper’s The Spy
Ladies’ Man by Richard Price
Something is broken in Kenny Becker’s life, but he doesn’t know what it is or how to fix it. At thirty, he’s stuck in a dead-end job, and he has mixed feelings about his relationship with La Donna. Maybe he loves her. Maybe he enjoys having a woman around for sexual reasons. He wonders what… Continue reading Ladies’ Man by Richard Price
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Edna Pontellier had followed the course of life laid out for women in the Turn of the Century America. She married young, and her choice of husband was a businessman with strong ambition and rising prospects. A Creole, he introduced her to the New Orleans Creole community, where she was stunned by the frank discussions… Continue reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Reserve by Russell Banks
As you read a novel, you do not need to like the protagonists; in fact, it’s possible to hate the main characters and still enjoy the novel. You can sympathize with them, understand their problems, relate to them, recognize their moral dilemmas, and even wish them success towards their goals. All while despising them. Such… Continue reading The Reserve by Russell Banks
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
Though I have a lot of good things to say about Blonde, I must confess it’s the novel that broke me. I read it as part of my ill-advised feature-writer series about Joyce Carol Oates. The feature-writer series was a short-lived program I started in 2019, where I would focus on one writer a month… Continue reading Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
Dune by Frank Herbert
Is Dune the perfect novel? Of course, perfection is what every piece of art—be it a painting, a sculpture, a poem, a song, a film, or a novel—strives to be. But what does it mean to say something is perfect? I consider some things perfect. Michelangelo’s David is a perfect statue. I remember standing in… Continue reading Dune by Frank Herbert