Murder in the Age of Enlightenment
Though the subjects are varied, what remains is Akutagawa’s beautiful starkness and his precise use of prose. There is the feeling that cutting one word would be impossible, but adding one would be a shame.
Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Jabberwocky is a little monster of a calico tabby. A very active cat, she is Hargrave’s little snicker-snack. She’s the third youngest kitten and has a very silky coat.
Hargrave adopted Jabberwocky from a shelter as a kitten. She was playful, adorable, and had big green eyes. She also didn’t sleep. After several 4AM wake-ups, Jabbers had to be trained to go to bed at a certain time. Even as an adult, she still goes to bed every night.
A valued member of the thieves guild, Jabberwocky will steal anything not nailed down. Her sister’s kibbles? Stolen. Pen on the table? Knocked off. Chair you wanted to sit in? Taken.
Despite being very hyper and never sleeping, Jabbers is also rather lazy. She loves to run after a toy as much as she loves to stuff herself and fall asleep on someone’s lap. It’s a contradiction she’ll never resolve.
Though the subjects are varied, what remains is Akutagawa’s beautiful starkness and his precise use of prose. There is the feeling that cutting one word would be impossible, but adding one would be a shame.
Patrick Hamilton’s Rope is a subtle kind of spooky. It’s not a murder-mystery. The murder has happened and it is no mystery who did it.
Termush centres around a seaside resort that after an unnamed disaster (but all signs seem to point to a nuclear war followed by a plague or a plague followed by nuclear war), which now houses those individuals that could pay for shelter and medical care.
Dark academia has become a much-talked-about off-shoot of the spookier genres, and I would say that label fits Picnic at Hanging Rock.
As the 1960s began to fade into the 1970s, noir took a fascinating and complex turn. It wasn’t enough to just be about a crime — now it was about being relevant to the current moment.
Here we are moving away from looming dread of war and toward the disillusionment of what was waiting for those that returned from overseas.
A collection of shorter pieces, and longer prose, all of the writing is connected by Babitz’s love for Southern California’s most famous city and its environs.
I won’t spoil it for those of you who don’t know Byron’s reputation or just what shocking and scandalous shenanigans he got up to, but it was enough that his literary contemporaries were all talking about it.
This week I’m going to review two McNally selections from earlier this year, both of which are delightful non-fiction reads that I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen off the shelf.
Short Letter, Long Farewell is heavily influenced by film noir. The plot does not drive forward in a straight line, but the one element that does provide consistent momentum is the narrator’s attempts to escape his ex-wife.