Encountering Kundera
/"Art is dying," Milan Kundera writes in his essay collection "Encounter," "because the need for art is dying"; John G. Rodwan, Jr. assesses his attempt to re-stoke that need
Read MoreLate to the Movies
/Movies notoriously fail when they try to depict interiority. So why not just restrict ourselves to books? For a million reasons and more.
Read MorePeer Review: Martin Amis, Funny Man
/For good or ill, when Martin Amis writes a new book, critics swarm to it with strong opinions pro and con - a perfect setting for a clarifying Open Letters Peer Review!
Read MoreWrite, Repeat Redux
/In his new memoir, Christopher Hitchens regales his readers with one good story after another. But as John Rodwan shows, we've heard most of them before - lots of times.
Read MoreCarson McCullers and Her Crowd
/She's been praised by Oprah and cut by Joyce Carol Oates; the nature of Carson McCullers' prose has always confounded some readers and pleased others. We read her again.
Read MoreLaughin’ Louis
/In the first half of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong and Sugar Ray Robinson both rose to greatness that reached across racial divides. Two new books look at the prices they had to pay.
Read MoreJoseph Conrad's Tragic Predicament
/“A sorry business this scribbling,” Joseph Conrad once confessed, and we remember him problematically. John Rodwan reappraises the murky nature of his books.
Read MoreJoshua Redman Makes His Move
/Joshua Redman’s new album Compass makes some daring allusions to the all-time titans of jazz; John G. Rodwan, Jr. listens to hear how Redman borrows from those pastmasters and how he departs from them.
Read MoreBlue Music
/The one jazz album even hardened jazz haters own – Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue – turns fifty this year. John G. Rodwan, Jr. plays out the tracks of its long, strange life.
Read MoreGoing Off Course with Melville and Liebling
/Two seemingly dissimilar figures in the American literary landscape – Herman Melville and A. J. Liebling – shared at least one thing aside from a way with words: they weren’t afraid of a little digression now and then. John G. Rodwan Jr. follows along for the stories.
Read MoreThe Arrested Artistry of Elinor Wylie
/Elinor Wylie has not received the respect of posterity that she herself thought she deserved. John G. Rodwan, Jr. explores the reasons for that neglect, and the poetry that survives it.
Read MoreUgly on Purpose
/Saxophone legend John Coltrane took jazz further from its traditional sound than any artist of his day. Philip Larkin kept traditional rhyme and meter alive in English verse. Richard Palmer’s new study, Such Deliberate Disguises, attempts to make the case for one influencing the other. John G. Rodwan Jr. puts the emphasis on “attempts.”
Read MoreA Drink-Man Among Drink-Men
/“Write while I’m sober?” legendary pint-puller Brendan Behan once growled, “What arse would want to read that?” His opinion has been shared by literary men through the ages, but perhaps none with more fidelity than Kingsley Amis; John G. Rodwan, Jr. bellies up to the bar and spends time with some of the 20th century’s most tippling typers.
Read MoreThe Same Indifference
/In The Same Man, David Lebedoff maintains that Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell were Doppelgängers, both in their art and their ethics; John G. Rodwan Jr. begs to differ.
Read MoreWrite, Repeat
/Notorious critic and essayist Christopher Hitchens has commented that certain writers are not shy of repeating themselves, and his critics have fired it right back at him. John G. Rodwan, Jr. enters the echo chamber.
Read MorePeer Review: Is Martin Amis Serious?
/The vituperation that greeted Martin Amis’ collection of essays The Second Plane reached singularly quotable proportions, even for this much-vituperated British author. In our regular feature, John G. Rodwan Jr. casts a cold eye on Amis’ dour detractors.
Read MoreOne Encounter: George & Me
/What do you do when the courageous trailblazing author who formed your youth is accused of an unspeakable crime? John G. Rodwan, Jr. does what Orwell would have done, weighed the evidence and let the chips fall where they may.
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