Word: novels
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...Lanark,” Alasdair Gray’s hefty first novel, is often called the “Scottish Ulysses.” The term is a reductive one, a kind of shorthand for any book that comes from the edges of the British Isles, documents the internal struggles of a young man, and experiments heavily with form. Granted, this may seem like a rather limited class of books; but no category, however specific, can hold this novel: though Gray—as much as any modern writer—owes a debt to Joyce, “Lanark?...
Gray, a self-described “fat asthmatic Glaswegian,” began writing his book as an art student in 1954. In a 30-year display of what can only be called tenacity, Gray continued to work on the 500-page novel until its publication in 1981. Perhaps Gray had an unusually strong sense of faith in his project, one that allowed him to push on where many writers would have quit...
...writing persists through his sketches of unlikable characters, ambiguous moments, and unsatisfying conclusions: Thaw’s early love affairs, for one, are not simply tragic or unrequited, but rather attempted, abandoned, unresolved, and forgotten, with none of the conclusive flair that readers have come to expect in a novel. Such literary decisions culminate in a story that is all the more compelling for its seeming incompleteness...
...well against Spain's enemies. But now he was hacking out a squalid living in Madrid as a sword-for-hire. Nevertheless, Captain Alatriste is poised to become fiction's hottest international swashbuckler since the Scarlet Pimpernel. Already a cult hero in Spain, Alatriste is the star of five novels by former journalist Arturo Pérez-Reverte that have sold more than 4 million copies in 50 countries since the first volume appeared a decade ago. That book, Captain Alatriste, was finally published in English last year, and the second, Purity of Blood, came out in January. The captain...
...There's nothing novel in the idea of a politician saying the same thing to politically divergent audiences. Bill Clinton did it in 1992, delivering the same message in white Macomb County, Michigan, as he did in black Detroit. And though McCain's call for tolerance and civility was not especially controversial or courageous, the Republican presidential aspirant got the best of all possible worlds - making amends to Falwell, sparking attacks from Greenwich Village lefties and generating tons of press attention in the process. Even better, the students might actually remember what got said at their commencement speech - which...