When Ralph Ellison published Invisible Man in 1952, America was still congratulating itself on having beaten the Nazis and saved democracy. Yet here was a novel calmly pointing out that a good chunk of its own citizens were treated as if they didn’t exist - or rather, as if they existed only when they could … Continue reading Invisible, My Eye – Reflections on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Tag: fiction
Maugham’s Cakes and Ale: On the Sacred Art of Not Taking Oneself Too Seriously
There are books one reads, and books one is quietly read by. Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale falls into the latter camp - it observes you from over the rim of its brandy glass, raises a bemused eyebrow, and says absolutely nothing. Not because it’s shy, but because it knows better than to interrupt the theatre of … Continue reading Maugham’s Cakes and Ale: On the Sacred Art of Not Taking Oneself Too Seriously
On the Road – Jack Kerouac and the Cult of Going Absolutely Nowhere Very Fast
I’ve never had the constitution for jazz. It makes me feel like I’m trapped in a lift with a methed-up trumpet and no discernible plot. And yet, somewhere in the post-war fug of America’s caffeine-sweating adolescence, Jack Kerouac managed to convince a generation that the meaning of life could be found in bebop, Benzedrine, and … Continue reading On the Road – Jack Kerouac and the Cult of Going Absolutely Nowhere Very Fast
Ectoplasm and Ego: Reflections on Coward’s Blithe Spirit
Few things are more infuriating than being interrupted at dinner by a ghost. I say this not from experience - at least, not in the spectral sense - but because I’ve spent a good portion of my life watching Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit with the growing suspicion that I, too, may one day be haunted … Continue reading Ectoplasm and Ego: Reflections on Coward’s Blithe Spirit
The Magus – A Hall of Mirrors for the Soul
There are some books you finish with a satisfied sigh, and others with a frown of confusion, and then there’s The Magus by by John Fowles - a novel I closed with the faint, haunting suspicion that I had been read far more thoroughly than I had read it. It didn’t so much end as evaporate, … Continue reading The Magus – A Hall of Mirrors for the Soul
Wording 