Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road is an intensely bleak vision of the apocalypse. The narrative follows two characters only ever referred to as"Man" and "boy" as they limp across a grey and hellish landscape full of cannibals, rotting houses, and precious canned food in aquest to reach the ocean. McCarthy raises very uncomfortable questions … Continue reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the death of Dialogue Tags
book review
Arrival/Story of Your Life: Languages of film and Prose
[This isn't the first time I've written on Arrival, and I doubt it will be the last. you can check out my original view of the film here at The Spectatorial: Arrival – A Case of Déjà vu] Though Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life was originally published in 1998, I did not discover it until … Continue reading Arrival/Story of Your Life: Languages of film and Prose
The Simplica Girl Diaries in review
“Limitations so frustrating” (Saunders 126) writes the narrator of George Saunders’ The Semplica Girl Diaries. But the self-imposed limitations and restrictions Saunders impose on his writing make for a more interesting story, building its narrative out of disturbing incompleteness. Set in an unspecified but near future, Saunders communicates everything about his narrative through the sparse, … Continue reading The Simplica Girl Diaries in review
A Children’s Crusade in Reverse (Slaughterhouse Five in review)
[feeling a little unstuck? that might be because I've written on this novel before: God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut. In some circles, I'm known for talking about Vonnegut a lot, so you can also check out my review of one of the author's weirdest works Slapstick, which Vonnegut himself graded a D, and my paper on Cat's … Continue reading A Children’s Crusade in Reverse (Slaughterhouse Five in review)
Ray Bradbury: There Will Come Soft Rains in Review
Few books have been as formative and influential for me as Ray Bradbury’s 1950 short story fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles. While the book as a whole is far from perfect – there are problematic depictions of gender and race throughout the middle section of the book – There will Come Soft Rains has always … Continue reading Ray Bradbury: There Will Come Soft Rains in Review
Letters to a Young Poet in review
The ten letters of Rainer Maria Rilke in correspondence with Franz Xavier Kappus that makeup Letters to a Young Poet offer little in the way of technical advice for writing. Rilke does not instruct on form; he does not comment on the use of language, or plot, or dialogue, or verse. However, what takes … Continue reading Letters to a Young Poet in review
Theory of Adaptation in Review
Note: Over the next two months I will be writing a series of very short reviews of both critical work and fiction for a special project. As there is nothing more I plan to do with these short reviews, I thought it might be appropriate to post them here over the coming weeks, if only … Continue reading Theory of Adaptation in Review
Ben Berman Ghan 