March 2019
-
I don't read much fiction, but when I do, it's usually one of the 19th-century classics. However, the "international bestseller" The End of Innocence (2016) by Benedict Wells came highly recommended, so I gave it a shot. It's pretty good, not bad, not great, and certainly a novel for today and not for all time — not…
-
A "col" is the lowest point of a ridge between two peaks; a "barmkin" or "barnekin" is a walled courtyard; a "carr" is a fen or wetland overgrown with trees; a "bauchling" (mostly Scots) is a reproaching or taunting in order to dare an adversary to fight; a "bastle" is a fortified farmhouse; a "cantref" (plural…
-
I've just read Tim Birkhead's biography of The Wonderful Mr Willoughby, The First True Ornithologist (London, 2018). Birkhead's thesis is that Francis Willoughby was not merely a bird watcher, but an innovative, diligent, and imaginative scientist, the founder of a new area of knowledge. Ornithology when Willoughby (1635 –1672) started to look at birds was…
-
I cooled my heels for more than an hour waiting for a "blood draw." Why so long? There was no long line of people ahead of me. Was it simply that the department was understaffed? That they all went out for ice cream? Or were the blood-collectors, the vampires, gossiping and lazing about behind the…
-
When I downsized into my present residence in 2009, a few essential items disappeared, among them a venerable but excellent toaster. I did not replace it because I was distracted by more pressing matters. I went toasterless for almost five years. Later, when I entered into a tentative new relationship, toasterlessness became a matter…
-
Usually the amnesia is the hardest bit to swallow. The amnesia in Dead Again is particularly unpalatable, because Emma Thompson shows up at a Catholic orphanage without any memory nor with any ability to speak. No explanation is ever offered for her disease, not a grain. No cracking the skull, no mysterious drugs, no trauma,…
-
It's hard to say how much of The Great Lie (1939) is original to its screenwriter Lenore J. Coffee. In the first place, the film is adapted from a novel, and secondly, at least according to the story, its stars Bette Davis and Mary Astor were unhappy with the screenplay and rewrote much of it.…