The little white attic

 1/ When asked whether we know a writer if we only read them in translation, I suppose most people would say either yes or no. I think it de...

1/ Does anyone read the Book of Job without feeling disturbed by the cruelty and callousness of God? Why does God, for no reason, take every...

The other day, I tweeted about Tom Payne’s translation of The Art of Love : “Picked up this copy of “The Art of Love” but I had to quit afte...

(An image created by MidJourney that caused controversy a few years ago when winning a photography/ digital art award).  1/ I once saw a twe...

Under my last blog post, I got a comment from Thomas Parker asking how I selected translations, so let’s jot down some thoughts.  1/ Anyone ...

What’s up with me and lists these days? I don’t know. Getting listless, I guess. But once in a while, I think it’s good to look at some list...

1/ The quote in the headline comes from chapter 53, when Cide Hamete Benengeli talks about the end of Sancho’s government, and about “the sw...

1/ Part 2 is even greater than Part 1.  As written in the previous blog post, in Part 2, Cervantes plays more with the form, with unreliable...

Aren’t you amazed at the range of characters in Shakespeare? I mean not just a range in backgrounds, identities, personalities, viewpoints, ...

1/ The greatest novel I’ve read this year is easily The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Sometimes I look at the suffering around the wor...

There is often something violent in the works of Flannery O’Connor. In A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories , the weakest stories ar...

Tolstoy, as you know, is the novelist I love and admire the most. One of the reasons is the vast range of characters, vast range of human ex...

Spoiler alert: Again, if you haven’t read the book, you probably shouldn’t read this blog post, in which I will discuss significant plot po...

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t read the book, you probably shouldn’t read this blog post, in which I will discuss significant plot points. W...