Reviews
November 22, 2011
Beyond Holokitsch: Spiegelman Goes Meta 1
by Michael Bourne
Art Spiegelman’s Maus is that rare work of literature that speaks to everyone while pandering to no one. MetaMaus is a record of how Spiegelman pulled off this magic trick.
November 21, 2011
Battle of the Heavyweights: Errol Morris vs. Susan Sontag 4
by Bill Morris
Book lovers love to watch two heavyweights slug it out. Bloodshed, though not necessary, is always welcome.
November 18, 2011
Mythology, Men, and Coonskin Caps: On Michael Wallis’s David Crockett 8
by Matt Hanson
David Crockett was romanticized in the same way that classic film stars, athletes, and politicians are, and for a similar reason — the legend is inextricably entwined with the actual human being. Not only is there no urgency to demystify, there’s almost no reason to. Sometimes the legend and the person are inextricable for perfectly good reasons.
November 17, 2011
The Truth About ‘The Truth About Marie’ 0
by Mark O'Connell
There’s a lesson in this that might be too awful for us to want to learn, which is that death takes from us not just our lives, but also our right to insist upon a particular version of those lives.
November 14, 2011
Porn, Lies, and Videotape: On Russell Banks’ Lost Memory of Skin 2
by David Rice
Lost Memory is a novel of the ruin and possible renewal of the Garden of Eden, where “maybe the Internet is the Snake and pornography is the forbidden fruit.”
November 7, 2011
Bitesized Backwoods Bloodbath: On Charles Frazier’s Nightwoods 3
by David Rice
Nightwoods is not only grippingly cinematic, it’s also unabashedly movie-ready, no less so than Cold Mountain was.
