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Turgenev’s “The Lone Wolf”: A Lit Report
A gentleman hunter enters a forest on his way home. A violent storm forces him to stop and take cover. That is the first oppressive condition that Turgenev introduces in his little masterpiece, “The Lone Wolf,” a story included in A Hunter’s Sketches (published 1852). As the gentleman cowers in darkness and torrential rain under…
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The Old Hometown
I wandered again to my home in the mountain Where in youth’s early dawn I was happy and free I looked for my friends but I never could find them I found they were all rank strangers to me —Albert Brumley, “Rank Stranger” In the 1960s and 70s, the back-to-the-landers and urban hippies fled the…
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So You’re 250. Here’s the Condition Your Condition Is In
In his 1922 book Public Opinion, Walter Lippmann asserted that we live in “pseudo-environments”—subjective, simplified interpretations of the complex, dynamic and superabundant world around us. He claimed that the decisions and actions necessary to our survival don’t allow for critical analysis and thorough assessment, and the more information to which we are exposed, the less discerning…
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Perfect Day for a Tirade
For the first time ever, I berated someone in public. And I couldn’t have picked a better day to do it. The sun was out in a cloudless sky and the temperature was holding at around 75 degrees Fahrenheit—the temperature at which most humans thrive. There was a gentle breeze to fan away the excess…
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The New Kid
Sunday night before brushing his teeth, my kid said, “There’s a new kid at school.” He was looking at me in a way that suggested I should understand the significance of that. And I thought I did. Tomorrow there would be someone new in his class, a stranger whom he would have to integrate into…
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Style and the Status Quo
Raymond Chandler said that “The most durable thing in writing is style.” He used the word durable because he was concerned with what makes writing last. But when you look at writing that has lasted, there’s no consistency of style, not even among contemporary authors. Not between Fielding, Johnson and Swift; not between Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu; not between…