The little white attic

1/ Compared to Part 1 , Part 2 does sound a lot more like Shakespeare. For example, look at the metaphor used by the Duke of York when he b...

After the 2016 version starring Don Warrington, this is the second King Lear I’ve seen. Or third, if you count the Russian film directed by ...

This is one of the candidates for the title of Shakespeare’s Worst Play. What do I think? Let’s see. I don’t have a lot to say, but I’m goin...

Let’s start with some personal news. Those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook may have been wondering where I’ve been the pas...

The first thing that needs to be said is that Orson Welles makes quite a few changes: he removes blocks of text (making the film 107 minutes...

1/ Tolstoy starts the epilogue by talking about historians’ criticisms of Alexander I.  “In what does the substance of those reproaches lie?...

1/ In Part 3 of Volume 4, we meet again Petya, the youngest of the Rostovs. His naïve enthusiasm is reminiscent of the naïveté in the young ...

1/ In the previous blog post, I wrote that there’s a problem in Tolstoy’s portrayal of Hélène, and wondered if there would be anything diffe...

1/ In an earlier blog post , I wrote that Tolstoy a few times compared things to the stage. The theatre metaphors reappear in this part.  “T...