Hopkins’s Wound
Gerard Manley Hopkins was careless of the fate of his poems, treated his muse like a slut and her children as an unwanted and vaguely sinful burden.
And Another Thing
The most recent translation of WG Sebald’s work offers the expected pleasure of his engaging prose style and an introduction to the world of some intriguing German writers.
Sacred Egoist
The Italian critic and editor Roberto Calasso enjoys a considerable reputation among the literary-critical elite, but how much substance or originality is there in his anti-rational musings?
Neither Here Nor There
Sherman Alexie writes of the lives of Washington state’s native Americans, who frequently do not feel quite at home either in Seattle or in the Indian reservations where many of them have roots.
Made in China
Dave Eggers’s beautifully written new novel offers a melancholy and dreamlike portrait of America in decline.
Weimar Stories
The German-Dutch writer Hans Keilson reached a new English-speaking audience when his novels from the 1930s were reissued. This rediscovery came when Keilson was 100.
Madwomen in the Attic
A novelistic exploration of Miss Havisham before Dickens got hold of her irresistibly recalls Jean Rhys’s brilliant work in the classic prequel genre.
Dispatches from the Island
Jonathan Franzen inextricably links writing to survival, to that which sustains life and keeps boredom and demise at bay.
THE END OF DAYS
Barbara Kingsolver presents a story of American rural life in which ecological concern is balanced with a fine feeling for the texture of actual lives.