California Literary Review
Book reviews, essays, and author interviews.
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- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Often written in a quiet, understated style that belies the madness and violence that seep through every aspect of life in this jungle country more than forty years ago, Tree of Smoke subtly hammers the reader with an unceasing rage that is the true nature of war’s insanity.
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:24:09 +0000 - Fortune’s a River by Barry Gough
By the closing years of the 18th century the stage was set for a major international confrontation over the Pacific Northwest Coast. Imperial Russia controlled the untamed Alaskan wilderness, Spain was expanding its holdings north from Mexico, Captain James Cook had claimed Northwest America for Great Britain and Captain Robert Gray had discovered the Columbia River, the historical basis for the United States’ claim to the river and the extensive watershed that extends eastward far into Montana.
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:25:35 +0000 - Parag Khanna Discusses The Second World
Around the entire world what I see is Europe and China investing into and buying greater shares of foreign economies—and thus gaining significant political and even military leverage over them—at our expense. Power has to be a fair balance among a range of tools, including the military, in order to be used effectively. We’re not doing that now, and I don’t see a good strategy coming out of Washington as to how to do it better.
Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:07:29 +0000 - American-Made by Nick Taylor
Meanwhile, walls of buildings were rising, mud roads were being paved, library books were being delivered on horseback, archaeological digs were being excavated, and Orson Welles was directing an all-black version of Macbeth set in the Haitian jungle. Along with the carpenters and secretaries, painters, sculptors, writers, and actors had also joined the ranks, though with some confusion on how one measured an artist’s full working week. The WPA was feeding a need, both for the individual and the community.
Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:41:12 +0000 - The Life and Art of J.M.W. Turner
Nature in the form of searing sunlight and raging storms increasingly blotted out the works of man in the later paintings of Turner. This was an ironic juxtaposition of his painterly vision with the spirit of his times. For the progressive spirit of early Victorian Britain was propagating a world view whereby the industrial juggernaut of railroads, steam ships and factories would reshape the world to suit humankind’s fancy.
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:50:06 +0000 - Light of the Moon by Luane Rice
Femi-lit doesn’t make as many headlines as its younger sister, but it shares certain familial traits. The protagonist is usually a woman in her thirties or forties, intelligent, independent, and confronted with the crises that arise in one’s middle years – the aftermath of a divorce, the death of a parent, a loveless relationship, the seesaw of work and family, the lack of a child. And as with chick lit, it is often love or a change of place that proves the catalyst for change.
Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:37:56 +0000 - Erotic Art of Ancient Pompeii
A favourite theme which recurred again and again in wall paintings was the satyr creeping up behind a nymph to catch her by surprise. In at least one case the nymph, her veil ripped away, turns out to be a hermaphrodite, to the satyr’s theatrical dismay, and the observer’s amusement. Some wall paintings showed homosexual sex and, because African motifs were popular, another depicted picnicking pygmies enjoying a group orgy under a tent.
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:35:47 +0000 - Notes From Italy: Villains, Romance, and Views
Filettino was not always a happy place, in history or in fiction. In the time of the Caesars the people here were Aequi, an Italic tribe of rough herders whom the Romans subdued with difficulty. For many centuries, probably millennia, the Aequi practiced transhumance, leading their herds over the Serra in late autumn to spend the winter in pastures in the Liri valley far below, and returning to the uplands for summer.
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:07:30 +0000 - Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee
His cold restraint, often criticized, is the source of his tremendous power as a novelist. His themes—displacement, power, the value of literature, the fictive possibilities of personal history—are worked and reworked into novels which shine hard like diamonds, unbreakable.
Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:01:22 +0000 - 30,000 Years of Art
‘Coffee table book’ is a familiar pejorative used to describe an intellectual lounge ornament which, should the need arise, can also serve as a doorstop, table prop or weapon in marital dispute.
Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:43:30 +0000 - The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour
If you meet a quiet, rugged kind of a fella with an almost superhuman knowledge of tracking, botany, and the lawful ways of the West, don’t challenge him in a gunfight. You’ll lose. Keep an eye out for smooth-talking, rich, and handsome men. They’re not to be trusted and they never end tidily. But a trim girl with smiling eyes who knows how to ride a horse, be she a reformed prostitute or a rancher’s daughter…well, expect to see her settling down any day now.
Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:50:05 +0000 - Battle for Falluja: Photos from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
The captured fighter claimed to be a student who had gotten stuck in Falluja. A Marine responded, “Yeah, right, University of Jihad, motherfucker.”
Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:07:03 +0000
