Not taking into account the obvious impossibility of answering such a question, having been raised with a proverbial silver spoon — at least for the first part of my life — and being a somewhat typical American where fitness is concerned, i.e. totally out-of-shape, I cannot, literally, for the life of me, answer this question [...]
Archive | April, 1994
Bulgakov and Pasternak
While both Bulgakov and Pasternak share social, national, and cultural concerns, their similarities seem to lie on a deeper, more subtle, level. Their respect for the artist and his/her creative spirit, drive to propagate their beliefs, and individuality far outweigh, in their respective views, the concerns of society and its assumed moral stances and degradation. [...]
Notes on Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne, like Poe and Melville, is a pessimistic Romantic. His writing is deceptively simplistic on the surface, but his subtle philosophy can be divined through a close reading — anything simple is an illusion. Hawthorne separates the reader from the action as much as possible (e.g. arachaic language, third-person narrative, time displacement) wanting the reader [...]
