Marlon James’ The Book of Night Women is, like, A Brief History of Seven Killings, a book about plotting and … More
Tag: the novel
262. (Theodor Fontane)
When Christine dies at the end of Theodor Fontane’s No Way Back, it is felt less as a consequence of … More
254. (William Makepeace Thackeray)
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair doubles that charge: the novel is braced by a simultaneous awareness of Regency and Victorian foibles, of … More
251. (William Makepeace Thackeray)
Vanity Fair asks that we accept the affection that the novelist-narrator feels for the creatures of the Fair, animated as … More
247. (Stendhal)
Stendhal is exhausting and bracing because his energy is relentless and directed relentlessly to one end: the refusal of … More
245. (Stendhal)
Stendhal’s romanticism has been described by Erich Auerbach in terms of “atmosphere,” a unifying relation of place, person, and time … More
244. (Stendhal)
Stendhal’s narration is a perpetual mystery of European literature; it goes hand in hand with his characterization (as narration usually … More
220. (Willa Cather)
It’s not only re-reading Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House at the same time as reading the final volumes of Proust’s novel … More
217. (Ishmael Reed)
Even though it is frequent in contemporary fiction, present-tense narration is not easily justified. People and place are no more … More
215. (Marcel Proust)
In the fifth volume of Recherche, The Captive, Baron de Charlus refers to a visit he has recently paid to … More