Category Archives: LITERATURE

LITERATURE: Genre

One of the things I like about the 2005 BAMS is this decision by series editor, Otto Penzler: Few of the stories are detective fiction, a tale in which an official police officer, a private eye, or an amateur sleuth … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: BASS & BAMS – Publication

This may be either very, very good news for writers, or maybe not. As I mentioned, in February I read the 2005 Best American Short Stories and did brief reviews on the twenty selected stories here on Spinning.  Last week … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: BAMS 2005 – Uh…

I really had no intention to do other than enjoy this issue of Best American Mystery Stories as mystery and horror had always been one of my favorite reading (and writing!) genres but one I’ve sadly neglected for many years.  … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Next Up

I think I shall squelch any impulse to reach for another novel from the pile; instead, I found The Best American Mystery Stories – 2005 that was a traditional Christmas gift for my sister who managed to cancel my Christmas … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Phaedrus – Logical Progression

This is what I’m up against: "Now, the beginning is unbegotten, for that which is begotten has a beginning; but the beginning is begotten of nothing, for if it were begotten of something, then the begotten would not come from … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – Finale

Your typical backwoods family: Anse, hardworking, toothless, faithful, semi-useless; Addie, his wife, very hardworking, resentful, cheated on her husband, dead at an early age; Cash, their oldest son, focused, determined, honest; son Darl, intelligent, watchful, non-risk-taking, strange, arsonist; son Jewel … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – Drama

We knew the river was rising, the rains swelling it to wash out the bridges, and the Bundren’s are in trouble crossing with the wagon loaded with Addie in her coffin.  Two things detracted from the drama of the moment … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – Time

Though I’m not sure I agree with the language and thought patterns that Faulkner assigns his characters, I do again see his dedication to understanding the passage of time in other than our own decided measured out format.  Here Darl, … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Phaedrus Sexual Love

In his comment to a prior post, Mark brings up what I have been purposely avoiding, or justifying on terms meant to allow the reading to apply to modern times and society. There is no denying that in Symposium and … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Phaedrus – Love as Control

From Socrates’ opening speech, we catch a glimmer of the selfishness of love: "He who is the victim of his passions and the slave of pleasure will of course desire to make his beloved as agreeable to himself as possible. … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Phaedrus – A Word on Technique

Something about the style of Plato’s essays, his use of what was common then, the play and interaction of the actors, permits a wonderful sense of realism to his lectures. Phaedr: Now, Socrates, what do you think? Is not the … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Classics

One of the bestest things to come of my habit to read Philosophy concurrently with someone like Faulkner, McCarthy, Marquez, Steinbeck, etc., is the accessibility of the two and how they braid together, one teaching the other in their relationship. … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – A Grammar Lesson

Man, after this novel if I don’t get it right I’ll give up.  (I’ve just gotten used to good and well.)  Addie, for eighty pages, has been lying in her bed, and now in her coffin, where they laid her. … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Phaedrus – Equality in Love

One of the things I’d noticed in Symposium, and that Phaedrus elaborates upon in his opening statements to Socrates in Phaedrus, is a further separation of form of love into lover and beloved.  This notion has become foreign to us … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: As I Lay Dying – Faulkner Faces Time & Space

Faulkner obviously loved to play with the question of time and space, effectively seen in The Sound and the Fury.  But I love this passage in As I Lay Dying, where Addie’s youngest boy, Vardaman, runs from the room just … Continue reading Continue reading

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