Alienation,loneliness, anxiety, and the search for a god who has abandoned us; the existential themes of Rainier Maria Rilke find an echo in those of Sartre . His poetics of disconnectedness and the lamentation of modernity act as a gateway or interface between the past and the future, in which the possibilities of being human … Continue reading Rainier Maria Rilke, on his birthday December 4
The best novels of 2018, the ones we’ll still be reading a thousand years from now, include: House of the Impossible Beauties, Joseph Cassara A marvelous and beautiful debut novel,which poses fundamental questions regarding identity and the struggle for its ownership, and of the shaping forces of the families we have chosen and … Continue reading Best Books of 2018
Satires full of wit and humor, ribald Chaucerian puns, Dantesque characterizations of his contemporaries and historical figures, subversive fables which echo those of Cervantes; Jonathan Swift unified the methods of his sources and became the primary example of satire at its best. He deployed his literary tools like pieces in a game to transform … Continue reading Jonathan Swift, on his birthday November 30
“I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” William Blake Satires of both Church and State authority, radical freedom and a revolutionary engagement with aristocratic tyranny and the English monarchy, a visionary theology which privileges direct personal insight without a filtering system of priests or the inquisitors and crusaders who enforce … Continue reading William Blake, on his birthday November 28
Dreams,visions, and the upending of conventions, an art of examination by the shifting of contexts, paradoxes and koan-like performances constructed as riddle-tests of initiation; Eugene Ionesco pursued a theatre of radical freedom which challenges us to live meaningfully. Sartrean authenticity is among his major themes; the falsification of identity by multiplication, mass uniformity, and … Continue reading Eugene Ionesco, on his birthday November 26
Primal fairytales and narratives of revolutionary intent; Margaret Atwood is a goddess of Liberty who comes bearing ax and torch to free us from our cages. While teaching her books I always referred to her as the greatest writer of the 20th century because her novels recapitulate and transform the whole history of … Continue reading Margaret Atwood, on her birthday November 18
Freedom, history, identity, values, and the conflict of tradition versus modernity; Chinua Achebe spoke of independence in the context of his own Igbo culture and its struggle against colonialism, but in terms of our universal human condition. He wrote of his own experience, but for us all. An excellent guidebook is available in Wren’s … Continue reading Chinua Achebe, on his birthday November 16
Surreal nightmares of eros and thanos, madness and transformations of human and machine as perversities of dehumanization, fate and prophecy and apocalyptic visions; J.G. Ballard reimagines the history of his time like a Book of Revelations, filled with portents of darkness. His work is a poetics of trauma, dislocation, the inevitablility of entropy and … Continue reading J.G. Ballard, on his birthday November 15
“I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty.” John Keats … Continue reading John Keats, on his birthday October 31
Absurdist satires, humor, science fiction, and a brilliantly imagined portrayal of the human condition; Kurt Vonnegut speaks to us from a deeply empathetic view of our foibles and suffering, our joy and potential for greatness, like a modern Mark Twain. He shares with Dostoevsky an interest in schizophrenia as both a literal and metaphorical illness. … Continue reading Kurt Vonnegut , on his birthday November 11
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 