Fiction
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The Candle In the Wind
The fourth and concluding tale in T.H. White’s The Once and Future King went by all too quickly. I remember being frustrated by the meandering quality of the narrative in the first book…
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The Ill-Made Knight
I’ve finished The Ill-Made Knight, the third tale of The Once and Future King. In this story we learn about Lancelot and Guenever, watch Arthur’s England continue to evolve, and observe the ways he continues…
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The Queen of Air and Darkness — Review
Warning: plot spoilers ahead… T.H. White’s The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939) is the second of four stories that make up The Once and Future King. Following on the heels of The Sword…
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The Queen of Air and Darkness
The Queen of Air and Darkness is concerned with whether Might makes Right. Though I’m not normally that tuned in to politics, lately it seems that everything I read triggers reflection on something…
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Diary of a Country Priest
I discovered Georges Bernanos’ The Diary of a Country Priest in the 1930’s list for the Decades Challenge. The library didn’t have a copy, so I ordered one; before it arrived, I read…
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The Sword in the Stone
T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone (1938) is spoken of in my Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia as “a witty and erudite fantasy of Arthur’s boyhood, which combines affectionate satire on 20th-century English manners and mores…
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Story within a story
Embedded in the rollicking fun of T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone is this gem: “Sometimes,” he said, “life does seem to be unfair. Do you know the story of Elijah and the Rabbi…
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Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway (1925) is a brussels sprouts book for me. For some reason the M.A.S.H. episode where Radar is in love with someone musical, and Hawkeye Pierce coaches him that he should respond…
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A Room with a View
I know it’s famous. I know it was a successful movie. But I had settled into grim dislike for it and was bearing down on the final pages before it suddenly and surprisingly…