Cynthia Freeland, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Houston, came out with But is it Art? in 2001. It’s an excellent introduction to various theories of art, particularly for an abject layman like me. In it, Professor Freeland expounds on competing and converging beliefs held by critics and philosophers, and she does so in a logical, concise, and accessible way. The book is a slim one, bolstered by References, Further Reading and an Index, like any scholarly book will. However,...
April 26, 2015
"A Peculiar Grace" by Jeffrey Lent
Jeffrey Lent’s heroes face challenges out of the run of the mill. Some of these, as in In the Fall and Lost Nation, face an onslaught of outside forces strong enough to bow or break even the strongest protagonist. In A Peculiar Grace, hero Hewitt Pearce’s toughest tests result instead from his own past and his not-always-healthy ways of coping with it. In this book, Mr. Lent has shrunk his canvas down from the sweeping, heroic backdrops he used in Fall and Nation, to the emotional life of one...
April 17, 2015
"The Empty Throne" by Bernard Cornwell
So. When last we saw Uhtred of Bebbanburg, he was fighting a desperate battle against extremely long odds, even for him. Overwhelmingly outnumbered, fighting for his life, he is savagely wounded in the same instant that he kills his enemy. And at the outset of The Empty Throne, the eighth entry in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Tales, Uhtred is indeed gravely wounded, limping as he walks, stalked by agony if he simply turns his body or mounts his horse. Aethelred, the puppet ruler of Mercia, dies...
April 03, 2015
"The Buried Giant" by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro adopts a surprising setting for The Buried Giant: Britain in roughly the sixth century AD, and he conjures a dark and enfeebled mood for the island’s inhabitants, who are held in the thrall of a dragon’s amnesia-inducing spell. In addition to the dragon, there are ogres, evil sprites, and a flock of ghostly harridans to bewitch and bedevil. Mr. Ishiguro chooses this milieu to explore two combating ideals: one demands redress of injustice even if it means opening old wounds...
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