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Monthly Archives: October 2014
“We rise again in the grass. In flowers. In songs.”
Anthony Doerr believes that literary writers should “strive toward complexity, toward questions, and away from certainty, away from stereotype.” This novel, which is a page-turner, one worth getting up early to read, demonstrates that he follows his own advice. Set … Continue reading
Posted in fiction
Tagged All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr, complexity, fear, France, Germany, haunting, invisible, literary, questions, Spirits
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“Denial was a talent she greatly admired. She could have been Gentile, except, of course, she wasn’t.”
How does a humorist write about death? This is what I wondered when I opened Delia Ephron‘s memoir, which has a piece called “Losing Nora” about her famous sister. She relies a lot on the formula that we see in … Continue reading
Posted in memoir
Tagged Delia Ephron, eulogy, formula, humor, humor and death, Memoir, sister, Sister Mother Husband Dog
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“Skip the beginning. Start in the middle.”
What happens when a novel begins in the middle of the story? There is a certain awkwardness. You can anticipate that there will be a lot of skipping around, which requires concentration. Is it worth it? In the case of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, the … Continue reading
“There should be brief intervals of time for quiet reflection . . .”
In this 1938 book about educational theory, John Dewey continues: “But they are periods of genuine reflection only when they follow after times of more overt action and are used to organize what has been gained . . .” He … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction, Pedagogy
Tagged educational theory, Experience & Education, John Dewey, pedagogy, psychology, Reflection
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