Tag Archives: book review

[Work: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain, 1894]
Nature, Nurture, Nightmare:

On Mark Twain’s Other Ironic Masterpiece, Pudd’nhead Wilson

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Introduction:

Portrait of Mark Twain by James Carroll Beckwith - Pudd'nhead Wiilson - irony, satire

Portrait of Mark Twain by James Carroll BeckwithT

This article is a straightforward recommendation, and I’m going to try to make it short, sweet, and enticing.

The book I want to convince you to read is a lesser-known work by an immensely famous author: Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. This book has a little bit of everything, from ironic comedy to tragic twists to courtroom drama, and all of it is tied together by a core of biting satire as strong as Twain is known for. Not convinced? Let me tell you a bit more.

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[Work: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain, 1894]
Nature, Nurture, Nightmare:

On Mark Twain’s Other Ironic Masterpiece, Pudd’nhead Wilson

 was last modified: April 23rd, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: Breakfast on Pluto, Patrick McCabe, 1998]
Tradition Troubled:

Boisterous Fun, Visceral Bloodshed, and ‘Irishness’ in Patrick McCabe’s Breakfast on Pluto

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Introduction:

Patrick McCabe - Breakfast on Pluto - Irish, gender, violenceOne of the goals of this site is to make sure that the style of the articles in each series (with the possible exception of Your Friday Phil) encompasses a range containing everything from advice lists to simple reviews to deeper analyses. The Tuesday Tome series is one which has spent the past couple of weeks dealing in dense, analytical material, so it is due for a simple review. In fact, this week’s article will take the form of a straightforward recommendation. And the book which I would like to recommend is Breakfast on Pluto, a 1998 novel by Patrick McCabe, one of the two books for which McCabe has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

This is both the strangest and second-most recent book which I have covered in the series so far. Breakfast on Pluto‘s strangeness results from its recentness, as it presents a combination of a raw depiction of violence in Ireland during the Troubles with a wistful, campy narrative voice provided by transgender character “Pussy” Braden. She is a person who was assigned male at birth, yet who has typically feminine character traits, fashion, and identification. If you are a reader interested in a work that challenges genre (and gender) conventions in order to tell a violent and uniquely Irish history in a new way, then read on.

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[Work: Breakfast on Pluto, Patrick McCabe, 1998]
Tradition Troubled:

Boisterous Fun, Visceral Bloodshed, and ‘Irishness’ in Patrick McCabe’s Breakfast on Pluto

 was last modified: April 26th, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: Beowulf, (Author Unknown), c. 700-1000]
Ending Unending Feuds:

The Portent of Beowulf‘s Historicization of Violent Conflict

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Introduction:

Beowulf first page - history, violence, feuds, cyclesIt has long been a clichéd truism that history is written by the victors; this assertion is often paired with the acknowledgment that a history written by those who lost major conflicts or were subjugated would be starkly different. The ubiquity of such sentiments clearly declares the paramount nature of considering perspective in approaching any historical account, whether that work is presented as non-fiction or fiction.

In the Old English verse work Beowulf, the question of perspective can be considered within the literary context of looking at speaker, syntax, and diction. One is meant, in light of the aforementioned modern sentiment, to look both at what that speaker aims to communicate about the events and individuals as well as at how and why the communication is thus structured.

That speaker, in historicizing the Geatish-Swedish Wars, actively obfuscates chronology, emphasizing the cyclical, muddy, and endless nature of feuding conflict so as to present the impotence of war, the tragedy of revenge, and the dependence of the two on a preoccupation with the past.

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[Work: Beowulf, (Author Unknown), c. 700-1000]
Ending Unending Feuds:

The Portent of Beowulf‘s Historicization of Violent Conflict

 was last modified: March 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1961]
Rocks and Hard Places Galore:

The Bureaucratic Appropriation of War in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

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Introduction:

Joseph Heller Sketch by M.R.P. - Catch-22 - bureaucracy, absurdity, morality

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

What do you get when you mix the surreal, atmospheric absurdism of Kafka’s best known works with the darkly comedic anti-war satire of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five? I would say that you get something very close to a book published about 40 years after Kafka’s death, and about 10 years before the publication of Vonnegut’s novel: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

I would make it no secret that Catch-22 is one of my personal favorite novels. It is a novel that represents a masterclass in the modernist and postmodernist technique of melding high culture and low culture, as well as tragedy and comedy. This article explores the dominant philosophy and masterful presentation of Heller’s most successful novel.

The nature of this article is such that it requires spoiling basic plot details of Catch-22, so you should only continue reading after this paragraph if you either do not mind spoilers or have already read the book.

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[Work: Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1961]
Rocks and Hard Places Galore:

The Bureaucratic Appropriation of War in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

 was last modified: October 10th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy, 1886]
Proximity to Death:

Authentic Living and Authentic Dying in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich

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Introduction:

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy by Ilya Efimovich Repin - The Death of Ivan Ilyich - authenticity, existentialism

Portrait of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy by Ilya Repin

The abiding concern of the most controversial and often the most fascinating instances of Leo Tolstoy’s later fiction was the struggle for meaning in the midst of the author’s own existential crisis. Among that later fiction, there is arguably nowhere that struggle attains more pathos nor more honesty than in his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Unlike other works by Tolstoy, the novella does not seem to contain an easily discernible, specific answer to the question of how one’s life should be lived. Perhaps a reflection of the author’s own inability to see a definite meaning in life or a definite reason for his own impending demise, or perhaps an expression of the very personal anxiety of reflection at such proximity to death, the physical decline of Ivan Ilyich is characterized by a parallel rising search for reason and meaning.

Though one is not given the particulars of Ivan Ilyich’s final realization, one is provided with the context and effect of that most joyous ultimate epiphany, as well as the particulars of the series of smaller revelatory modes of thinking which lead to it. As Ivan Ilyich passes through phases of thought, he gains more and more insight into his past, his life, and the nature of existence, ultimately concluding that what he has lacked and sorely desires is authenticity.

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[Work: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy, 1886]
Proximity to Death:

Authentic Living and Authentic Dying in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich

 was last modified: March 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski