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| Literary Criticism Blogs |
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Reviewing the Reviewers by Ann Herrick 7/17/2021 12:56:01 PM
Reviewers review books, but who reviews the reviewers?
Lots of people, it turns out!... more
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"Keystone Bay / Saturday September 1, 2001 by Stephen W. Pollard 6/27/2021 5:29:31 PM
"Keystone Bay / Saturday September 1, 2001"... more
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Poets Aren't Prophets by Jade Dane Jaspers 8/8/2019 5:42:19 PM
Poets aren’t prophets. Neither are essayist or writers. They’re unpopular regurgitators of the now, fed to us all... more
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Creative excuses... by Morgan McFinn 1/4/2019 6:39:15 AM
Creative excuses...... more
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Dostoevsky: A Superlative Writer by Richard French 1/15/2018 5:40:21 AM
I've been listening to audiobooks of Dostovesky's early, shorter works "The Double" and "Poor People". I've listened to each one at least twice. I'll start "The Gambler", which is not so early, in the next day or two.
These novellas are al... more
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George Eliot's "Middlemarch" -- Yesterday and Today by Richard French 11/6/2017 7:46:11 PM
Surely most everyone who's come in contact with the novels of George Eliot knows that the author's real name was Mary Ann Evans. She was one of the most distinguished writers in a remarkable group of 19th century novelists. A lot of her high standing... more
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Dickens, George Eliot, and Trust in Life by Richard French 8/26/2017 6:43:48 PM
Several weeks have gone by since I last wrote a post for this blog, one of the longest times I've been away from it since I started it in the fall of 2009. A main reason for my silence is that my afternoon routine has changed slightly.
As th... more
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Don Quixote and Self-Knowledge by Richard French 6/1/2017 7:44:04 PM
I once listened to an audiobook of "Don Quixote" that a narrator named Robert Whitfield read with skill and consistency. This was at least the fourth time I've been through the story. With each encounter I discover something new.
This time,... more
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Filling Empty Spaces: On Audiobooks by Richard French 5/22/2017 3:21:05 PM
For centuries, the printing press has been our main source for written public communications. Now we have alternatives -- the internet, ebooks, mobile phones, and also audiobooks.
I've listened to novels and short stories on audiobooks for m... more
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Mikhail Bulgakov: The Courage to Speak His Mind by Richard French 5/20/2017 12:52:10 PM
Two friends of mine and I once saw a production of Bulgakov's play called in this translation "The Royal Comedians" at a theatre in Toronto. Bulgakov was a prose writer and theatre man who worked in Stalinist Russia. He had an up and down relationshi... more
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A Novel about Taxes & Bureaucrats? No Way!! by Richard French 1/27/2017 4:36:53 PM
I'm about two-thirds the way through an unfinished novel called "The Pale King" by the American David Foster Wallace, who suffered from depression and died by his own hand in his mid-forties. An editor put his work on the novel together and broight i... more
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Drinks on Our House by George Thomas Clark 1/16/2017 12:18:05 PM
Drinks on Our House
Clara warned Lloyd he better quit drinking...
Click here to read:
http://www.georgethomasclark.com/?p=10501
... more
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Engaged Readers? by Richard French 1/5/2017 7:34:22 AM
Here's an imaginary dialogue about writing and reading:
Harry liked to make his points boldly without regard to the effect his manner had on the person he was talking to. "You told me last time we met that you like the novels of Charles Dic... more
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I Respond to a Famous Ghost Story by Richard French 1/4/2017 6:50:51 AM
Some of the most interesting fiction I've read is by modernist writers who were active at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th -- Thomas Mann, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf (most recently a novel called "The Years"), and Marcel Pro... more
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On Writers' Groups and Useful Criticism by Richard French 11/6/2016 3:10:45 PM
Since I moved to Toronto nine years ago, I've become familiar with several writers' groups. I've been especially interested in ones that give writers a chance to bring manuscripts for comment and criticism. There are quite a few in Toronto and that m... more
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"L" by Howard Alan Lantzer 10/9/2016 12:29:07 AM
"L," the inspiration/instigation for STRANGE RIVERS, ELATION and dozens of poems has now taken her own path.
I mean that in the metaphorical sense, of course, not the material. As far as I know, she's fine. But no longer responds to my mess... more
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Does the Novel Have a Future? by Richard French 8/31/2016 7:46:54 PM
I've admired the novels of V. S. Naipaul for quite a while, so I was happy to discover his last two, which some critics said are weaker than his earlier work, but I found them worth reading and interesting for the post-Conradian motifs he explores. S... more
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Solution Found! by Howard Alan Lantzer 8/29/2016 10:41:01 PM
I've been struggling with ARGO, my latest novel. I have a good central theme and I've been developing three major characters. But now I see that one of these characters simply doesn't fit.
I've cut that character out completely. I think I ca... more
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Two Unfamiliar Plays by Shakespeare by Richard French 8/21/2016 7:35:23 PM
I've been listening to vinyl recordings that must be at least 50 years old of two of Shakespeare's plays: "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" and "Cymbeline". He wrote them late in his career, after the great comedies and tragedies, possibly with the help of ... more
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One Preacher's Thoughts on "Robinson Crusoe" by Richard French 8/20/2016 7:19:51 PM
"Robinson Crusoe" is one of the legendary novels of western literature. It tells the story of a young man who defies the wishes of his parents and the benefits of middle class life and sets off on adventures at sea. He encounters more than he expect... more
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