In the end, they decided she was innocent — and that was all she was ever allowed to be. I’ve always felt that Daisy Miller is less a story about impropriety than about cowardice. Not Daisy’s — heaven forbid — but ours. Ours as readers, as observers, as members of those polite little tribunals that … Continue reading Not Bad: A Epitaph for Daisy Miller
Tag: books
The Lottery: A Sermon in Sunlight
This isn’t a story that creeps like fog, but a story that strikes like a thrown stone. Though Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery manages both. It begins with a sky of perfect summer blue, as though God Himself had painted it fresh for a village fête, and ends with Tessie Hutchinson screaming under a rain of … Continue reading The Lottery: A Sermon in Sunlight
They Flew: A Short Sermon on the Impossible
It’s one of history’s great absurdities that the Middle Ages believed human beings could fly — and one of modernity’s great dullnesses that we no longer permit them to. Carlos Eire, in his magnificent and quietly mischievous They Flew: A History of the Impossible, takes us by the hand and leads us into a world … Continue reading They Flew: A Short Sermon on the Impossible
The Naked Civil Servant: A Gospel According to Outrage
This book didn’t slip quietly into the world like a well-behaved parishioner. The Naked Civil Servant — Quentin Crisp’s scandalous act of cultural streaking, his autobiographical confession written with the dignity of a saint and the insolence of a man determined to rattle the tea trays of middle England. It’s a work so defiantly honest, … Continue reading The Naked Civil Servant: A Gospel According to Outrage
ROSEMARY’S BABY — A Psychological Reflection
What book are you reading right now? There are some novels that pretend to be about the devil but are, in truth, about the far more distressing creatures that live under our own ribs. Rosemary’s Baby is one of them. On the surface it’s a story about covens, conspiracies, ancient rituals, and a baby with … Continue reading ROSEMARY’S BABY — A Psychological Reflection
Wording 