Tag: Literature

Beautiful You: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk

I like most things by Chuck Palahniuk, mostly because he always pushes the envelope, even when or perhaps especially when it leaves people outside their comfort zone. This particular book explores sexuality and women in a way that’s distressing to an extent. I couldn’t really decide if he was drawing women as superficial pleasure seekers …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/01/16/beautiful-you-a-novel-by-chuck-palahniuk/

The Long Night of White Chickens by Francisco Goldman

I have a real fondness for Latin American novels. From Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magical realism to Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s rejection of that magical realism and always, always, a deep fondness of Pablo Neruda’s poetry, I’ve read what I can find and enjoyed it all. I very much wanted to enjoy Francisco Goldman’s The Long Night …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/01/10/the-long-night-of-white-chickens-by-francisco-goldman/

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders by Samuel R. Delany

I bought this book blindly because of the title and the author. I have loved some of Samuel R. Delany’s past science fiction novels, and that’s how I thought of him – a Science Fiction writer and only a Science Fiction writer. Combine that with the title and I thought I couldn’t go wrong with …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/01/03/through-the-valley-of-the-nest-of-spiders-by-samuel-r-delany/

Alias: Grace by Margaret Atwood

In the interest of disclosure, I have to say that I have never read a Margaret Atwood book that I didn’t like. There were some that disturbed me, made me think, made me wish such things didn’t exist to be written about, but I have always been glad for the experience. Part of her charm …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/12/23/alias-grace-by-margaret-atwood/

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Some people come away from this play with the impression that it is anti-semitic, but Shakespeare puts such eloquent defenses and rebuttals in the mouth of Shylock, on behalf of himself and his people, that for me the charge does not ring true.  The more serious theme of this drama is the balance, at times …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/12/15/the-merchant-of-venice-by-william-shakespeare/

The Chronicles of the Black Company by Glenn Cook

“The Chronicles of the Black Company ” is a dark epic fantasy by Glenn Cook. It depicts the travels of the Black Company a band of ruthless mercenaries as they switch from side to side. It is told in the voice of the Company’s surgeon and chronicler who’s fantasies about the ruling lady take him …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/09/12/the-chronicles-of-the-black-company-by-glenn-cook/

Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton

This is a marvelous book that explicates modern literary theories in very readable English. The author has a Marxist bent that flavors his discourse throughout, but he does a good job of explaining critical theories like formalism, the New Criticism, phenomenology, structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis. He also asks pertinent and seemingly unanswerable questions, such …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/05/13/literary-theory-an-introduction-by-terry-eagleton/