“Why don’t you all f-fade away And don’t try to dig what we all s-s-say I’m not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation I’m just talkin’ ’bout my g-g-g-generation” – The Who, “My Generation” n+1 magazine has an assessment of the influence of critical theory on American novelists who came of age in the 80s, […]
Part I: where American conservative Charles Murray’s scientific assessment of periods of cultural greatness is held up to a closer scrutiny than he would probably care for. The further Murray’s essay goes on, the more his conditions for cultural greatness fall into a deeper and deeper murkiness. At one point he sets up a hypothetical […]
In this season of bitter political squabbling you would think that art and culture could provide a refuge from the name calling and finger pointing that seems to have taken the place of legitimate debate. Think again, because whether it’s Hungarian plans to ceremonially rebury the fascist writer Jozsef Nyiro or Dmitri Medvedev adding to […]
In a recent article on revivals of plays by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty uses the occasion to identify some shortcomings in contemporary theater that apply equally, if not even more closely, to contemporary fiction. He distinguishes the work of these two modern greats not only in degree […]
The story of Dickens baring his soul Russian-style to a visiting Dostoevsky looks to be as invented as any of their respective novels The influence of Charles Dickens on the novels of Dostoevsky seems fairly evident. In his study of the Russian writer’s work Joseph Frank recounts the impression made on Dostoevsky by reading Dickens’ […]
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