The Cronenlogical Cronenberg 2: Twice Dead

We've only seen the tip of the Cronenberg Iceberg. The journey continues. Two masters of horror with very different sensibilities met in “The Dead Zone.” David Cronenberg’s take on Stephen King’s classic thriller (about a man with psychic powers) is chillier, more Canadian. King’s Maine towns are warmer, more human somehow, never mind what the …

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps : Angus Fletcher – “Wonderworks”

Over 4500 years ago, the daughter of King Sargon of Akkadia did something astonishing: she gave HERSELF a name, Enheduanna, and used it liberally in her prayers to Inanna, the god of the Moon.  “I, Enheduanna, will recite a prayer to you… I shall give free vent to my tears like sweet beer!” In doing …

The Reading of Pelham, 1, 2, 3: Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton – “Pelham, or Adventures of a Gentleman”

For about half a century or so, people who have never bothered to read Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton have been crapping on him based on one supposedly bad line: “It was a dark and stormy night.” Some nights ARE dark and stormy, though. For the record, both Edgar Allan Poe in “A Bargain Lost” and Madeleine …

The Art of the Unreal : Henry James – “The Art of Fiction”

“The Art of Fiction '' is a) influential b) often invalid in its sententious pronouncements, and c) often broad to the point of pointlessness. Henry James draws an analogy between novelist and painter, suggesting faithful depiction of reality as both their noblest, truest aims.  “As the picture is reality, the novel is history.” Painters from …

Man of Understanding : Ezra Pound – “ABC of Reading.”

The Greek-loving students in Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" must have run into Ezra Pound's "ABC of Reading" at some point, and rejoiced at Pound's appreciation for Homer's melodious inventiveness, (or been upset by Pound's dismissal of Greek drama as Homer-influenced stage business.) But "ABC of Reading" (1934) has dripped its wisdom upon far less sophisticated heads, …