Month: May 2017

“The Hopper painting hung on the wall with an indifference so vast it began to feel personal, as though it had been painted for this moment”

The passage continues: “Your troubles are huge and meaningless, it seemed to say, there is only the sun on the side of the house.”  The troubles of the people in this illuminating book are vast indeed: no novelist, including Charles Dickens, reveals more clearly the grim scars of poverty and … Read More

“The truth is that my greatest enemies stand not within the crowd outside . . “

What will happen when the reigning 92-year-old queen of England, Elizabeth II, dies and her son Charles, Prince of Wales, becomes king?  This play by Mike Bartlett, which PBS presented last Sunday, speculates that Charles will make a desperate attempt to protect one of the hallmarks of democracy, namely, … Read More

“We have to keep making choices, keep transforming.”

Some memoirists see themselves as products of their times.  Others see themselves in terms of the obstacles they surmounted or movements they created. Samantha Ellis measures herself against the strongest women who live between the covers of novels.  Her approach – which  the Guardian calls “biblio-autobiography” – is … Read More

So what about Dylan’s song “Blowin’ in the Wind”?

Tony Beck, who wrote his dissertation for Cambridge University on Bob Dylan, notes that Dylan “borrowed extensively” from the English poets Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Bryon, who also used the “wind” as a central image in their poems. For them, the wind often symbolized change and freedom.  It probably … Read More