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Alan Bray
Dec 3, 20204 min read
Poorly Drawn Boy
In The Skin of a Lion has not one but two scenes in which Patrick Lewis is sketched. Early in the story, his father Hazen “outlined the...
Alan Bray
Nov 26, 20204 min read
In Which I Define Life
In a previous post having to do with a different book, I wrote about What Do You Do When I Can’t See You—that phenomena in fiction of the...
Alan Bray
Nov 19, 20204 min read
The Mysteries of the Model Author
Let’s consider some implications of the narrative style of In the Skin of a Lion. Umberto Eco suggests that a text contains three...
Alan Bray
Nov 12, 20205 min read
Zoom
Last week, I threatened to write about In the Skin of a Lion’s narrative structure. Going to do it today. The book is often described as...
Alan Bray
Nov 5, 20204 min read
In the Skin of a Lion
This week, a new story, Michael Ondaatje’s 1987 book, In the Skin of a Lion. At times, the past becomes bit murky, but I believe I first...
Alan Bray
Oct 29, 20204 min read
The Boat Is Sinking! Bail!
The ending of Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is rather open and ambiguous—to me, at least. It’s quite possible Andrew Miller might read my...
Alan Bray
Oct 22, 20204 min read
The End of Omniscience
The narrational style of Now We Shall Be Entirely Free shifts from beginning to end. We’ve talked about how, in the beginning, it is...
Alan Bray
Oct 15, 20204 min read
Shut Up and Read
Literary theorist Roland Barthes developed a distinction in literature between readerly and writerly texts. He believed most texts are...
Alan Bray
Oct 8, 20204 min read
Sin-Eater
The significance of names in Now We Shall Be Entirely Free should probably be noted. John Lacroix certainly makes one think of the French...
Alan Bray
Oct 1, 20201 min read
A New Web Site
With the help of my wonderful wife, Dena, I have a new web site. It has some new photos, including a fine one of yours truly. A new...
Alan Bray
Oct 1, 20204 min read
Some 'Splaining To Do
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free is a novel written around the year 2018, but the story takes place in the British Isles in 1810 after the...
Alan Bray
Sep 23, 20204 min read
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
This week, a new book, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free written by Andrew Miller, published in 2019. I first read it earlier this year,...
Alan Bray
Sep 16, 20204 min read
What Is This Thing Called Love
An early review of “A Sport and a Pastime,” states that to live for sex alone is to be less than human. I don’t know. On the face of it,...
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Sep 9, 20204 min read
"Country" in a Chanel Suit
An oft-noted distinction within literary texts is whether they emphasize showing the characters in action over telling the reader about...
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Sep 2, 20203 min read
Imaginary Friends
Since writing last week’s post, I’ve been up around three a.m., worrying about what I wrote last time, worrying about the effect of my...
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Aug 26, 20204 min read
Time and "Sport"
This week, let’s look at how time is handled in “A Sport and a Pastime.” In his great book, “The Perpetual Orgy,” Mario Vargas Llosa...
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Aug 19, 20203 min read
Truthiness
Last wee k, we began to turn our keen minds toward James Salter’s “A Sport and a Pastime.” Let’s continue. By definition, a work of...
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Aug 15, 20204 min read
A Sport and A Pastime
This week, a new work of fiction, “A Sport and a Pastime” written by James Salter, published in 1967. I first learned of Salter belatedly...
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Aug 5, 20204 min read
He Knows If You've Been Bad or Good
Who is the narrator of “Starting Out in the Evening?” Is it Brian Morton? Is he “telling” the story, displaced across space and time to...
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Jul 29, 20204 min read
What Do You Do When I Can't See You?
What’s missing in “Starting Out in the Evening” is as significant as what’s present. A lot is missing; the novel consists of...