A Momentary Taste of Being

Mr. Dashner rounds out the trilogy begun in The Maze Runners and continued in The Scorch Trials .  These are of the YA genre that seems to have escalated in popularity in recent days--bad adults put young people in serious danger for some perceived good or order in society.  It is understandable why they appeal to young people, because we all remember the times when the adult world was out to subvert us and to harm us "for our own good."  But it does become a trifle tiresome after a while, and this third book of the series bears this out. While the series ends, it doesn't seem finished.  This last book seemed somewhat overlong and rambling without really getting to a critical point.  Mr. Dashner seemed not to know where he wanted to be with the book--Teen Angst or ZA (Zombie Apocalypse--for those not up on the terminology).  As a result, the book seemed a bit of a muddle to me. However, if you've read this far, you'll want to finish out the series, so ...

From earliest youth I have loved the work of Salvidor Dali.  Here is a film started in 1946 and finished . . . later. The continual chain of transformation is just gorgeous. What a fascinating specimen of mind gives rise to so interesting a series of transformations.

HD arrives in London--a font of imagism

"The Doll," unpublished since the late 30's available in its entirety

Interview with Geoff Dyer via Books Inq.

An appreciation of Dorothy Dunnett's historical novels

The Hare with the Amber Eyes --Edmund de Waal I've heard about this on and off in many places and I'm intrigued by it.  I think I really want to read it.  This review practically drags me into it.

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi --reviewed

Doerr takes the Story Prize for Memory Wall I really must try to get through that book. With Yiyun Li and Susan Rivecca as runner's up. That last one really makes me wonder about the validity of the award.  Or perhaps it should make me go back and see what it was I missed this first time around.

The Matchmaker of Kenmare Frank Delaney reviewed.

Guillermo del Toro to direct At the Mountains of Madness We'll see if funding materializes, but if he handles it with the aplomb of The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth with a liberal sprinkling of Hellboy , we're likely to be in for a real treat.  The first Lovecraftian treat on film (other than the Lovecraft-in-name-only Reanimator. ) Poor H.P. suffers nearly as badly as E.A. Poe and Stephen King in the transition to the silver screen.  Consider such gems as Die, Monster Die!, The Shuttered Room, The Dunwich Horror .  Dagon was all right, but not much related to the story.  And probably the best Lovecraftian film, In the Mouth of Madness has precious little to do with anything H. P. penned.

Acquainted with the Night considered Somehow I missed this first time around--but it looks like the kind of book I could sympathize with.  Never much cared for morning, but love the dusk and night.

"The Bus to Ramallah" --gorgeous, poignant, short and beautiful

Bad Marie reviewed

James Dean Tribute For those who admire him, he will ever be the rebel without a cause.  I'm not in the legion of admirers. Nevertheless, he, and a few others exemplify these sentiments: To An Athlete Dying Young A. E. Housman T HE time you won your town the race   We chaired you through the market-place;   Man and boy stood cheering by,   And home we brought you shoulder-high.      To-day, the road all runners come,       Shoulder-high we bring you home,   And set you at your threshold down,   Townsman of a stiller town.      Smart lad, to slip betimes away   From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows   It withers quicker than the rose.      Eyes the shady night has shut   Cannot see the record cut,   And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears:      Now you will no...

"On the Roofs of Terry Street" I was struck by the image of the aerials as Chinese characters against the sky

As much as I've disliked Dawkins's New Atheism--I've found his science even less logical and palatable--here is a sort of stab at why Perhaps someday I'll commit an essay with a title something like "Gould, Yes! Dawkins, No!"  But I doubt I'd have the patience to trace out what I find illogical and incomplete in Dawkins's work or why I find Gould's work, though flawed, so thoroughly engaging and interesting both as science and as thought.

The Ginger Man considered and reviewed

Marcel Duchamp--Anemic Cinema

Continuing a survey of de Maupassant's short works