Iľja Rákoš

Because Eric Idle once wore a pink tux and I've never been able to forget it.

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Beauty and Loss are One

a review of "Cities of the Plain" by Cormac McCarthy

"Quinquagesima Sunday in the predawn dark she lit a candle and set the candledish on the floor beside the bureau where the light would not show beneath the doorway to the outer hall."

In this quiet, yet foreboding scene from Cities of the Plain, the final installment of Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", a young woman prepares to steal . . .

Posted in: #abraham #american west #border trilogy #cities of the plain #cormac mccarthy #determinism #dramatic irony #free will #greek tragedy #hamlet #hesiod #homer #immanence #jarilla hills #luke 18 #magdalena #mexico #prostitution #quinquagesima #quixotic #romantic #spinoza #subject-verb-object #texas #tom waits #transgression #world literature

August 26, 2016

Four Gorgeous Novels in non-normative English

where 3rd grade teachers go to die

There’s this old argument between the Descriptivists and the Prescriptivists and it goes something like this. The “Descript-” side insists that human language is a shifting, morphing, breathing thing. It takes on whatever forms or structures it requires, and leaves us with a dictionary that, theoretically, begs to be . . .

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August 22, 2016

Svetlana Alexievich Is No Useful Idiot

Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 for work she has produced over the last 30 years chronicling the troubled history of the USSR. What you see here is my interview with her and my further consideration of her importance to world culture; the piece was released originally on 23 May 2016 at . . .

Posted in: #dissident #eastern europe #kiev #kyiv #lukashenko #nobel prize #putin #repression #secondhand #soviet #svetlana alexievich #the millions #ukraine #ussr #world literature #yeltsin

August 13, 2016