Month: February 2023

“Kafka attended courses on the History of German Art, History of Architecture, History of Dutch Painting, and History of Christian Sculpture.”

Anne Tyler, John Updike, and Flannery O’Connor all made paintings and sketches in addition to writing fiction. As it turns out, so did Franz Kafka, who had a strong interest in art from his teens to his untimely death at age 40. What can you learn from looking at his … Read More

“Everything was pulled tight as a snare drum, so expertly smoothed that you could easily spot the century’s worth of patched holes and tears.”

Perhaps nobody is surprised that the British and the American reviewers of Spare by Prince Harry see things differently.  For example, the New Yorker describes Harry’s mended bedding in Balmoral Castle as “a metaphor for the constricting, and quite possibly threadbare, fabric of the institution of monarchy” while the British … Read More