Jhumpa in altre parole
In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is an engaging series of reflections for any of us who have striven in adulthood to master a new language. More than 20 years ago, Jhumpa Lahiri — whose first language (spoken to her in infancy by her mother) was Bengali and … read more »
Fake news, fake history, & fact-checking
With so much falsehood being spun and repeated, now more loudly and insistently than ever, it is a joy to find someone who analyzes scientifically, sorting information to find the most plausible and best documented interpretation. Our best journalists do this, and our most conscientious historians, but even they need to be fact-checked. For this I … read more »
In the Low Countries, 4: Postscript— Delft
(I wrote this shortly after our return from the Netherlands at the end of May, 2017) Last night we finally saw Peter Webber’s glorious film The Girl with the Pearl Earring (2003) — after reading Tracy Chevalier’s novel, which I reviewed in 2001, seeing the original painting in Den Haag, and then visiting Delft, where … read more »
In the Low Countries, 3: Art in context
One of the benefits of our journey was seeing famous and familiar art works in contexts that made them new and required a fresh interpretation. Seeing reproductions in books and the Internet or, if we’re lucky, the originals in a museum can be no more than a start to understanding it. Being there, in the … read more »
The troubled killer
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt My rating: 4 of 5 stars In the 1850s, time of the California gold rush, Charlie and Eli Sisters are on contract to track down and kill a man they don’t know, Hermann Kermit Warm. To do this, they must travel from Oregon City — the last civilized outpost … read more »