World Literature, World fiction, European literature
According to Wikipedia, when The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in 1774, it became the world’s first best seller. Since book publishing was, at best, only a toddler, since copyright laws were nonexistent, and since it is doubtful anyone was tracking book sells statistics, I find this claim–at least in the literal meaning...
Around August 4th of this year, Elie Wiesel’s childhood home in Sighet, Romania was vandalized. The vandal spray-painted public toilet and Nazi Jew lying in hell with Hitler and Anti-Semite pedophile across the outside walls. Going through my news app, I spotted the headline, but I probably wouldn’t have read the article, because I’m...
In 1968, the Cinémathèque Française in Paris stood as one of the few government-funded and operated tributes to cinema in the world. Henri Langlois, who cofounded the organization in the 1930s, still ran it. During the 30s, he built up a large film library, and during World War II, as Germany occupied Paris, he...
It’s been a goal of mine–unsatisfactorily fulfilled–to include in these pages reviews not only of novels from my own country, but also those written overseas. A culture can become myopic if it views the world only from its own perspective. We read world literature not only to experience how vast and different the peoples...
To use a trite, overused, but descriptive phrase, Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman is a page turner. Once I picked up the novel and began reading it, I didn’t want to set it down, no matter how tired I felt, how hungry, how many other things I needed to do, and how many other pastimes I...
Though homely in the face and wearing the largest glasses most people have every seen, Isserley has large breasts. They’re modeled after the breasts of a centerfold model, and in all her travels, she had never encountered another woman with a pair that even approaches her size. She needs them because she has a...
After finding and losing eleven jobs in two years, Célestine, a domestic maid, took a new position in the country. In an effort to understand her failure to find stability, as she began working for Isidore and Euphrasie Lanlaire, she purchased a diary to record her daily life and reflections of her personal history....
I became an atheist at the Cathedral of Avila in Spain. Standing in the cathedral, staring at the gilded alter, I overheard one of my travel companions say: “Just think. While this was being built, millions of Europeans were starving to death.” It was a simple comment, not directed at me, but it inspired...
“Who’s your favorite writer?” people sometimes ask me. “What’s your favorite novel?” I shy away from answering. I distrust absolutisms, and favorite implies an absolute status. But some writers I keep coming back to–Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Styron, etc.–and Thomas Hardy is one of these writers. Since I do not read English writers often, perhaps it’s...
The fault, I confess, lies with me. I couldn’t get into Carlos Fuentes’ Destiny and Desire. Though I read the book from the first page to the last, it was a struggle. I’m not sure why. I have no doubt that it is a great book, and I know others have enjoyed reading it,...
