A New Directions edition.Had the good fortune of finding the novel A Far Cry From Kensington by the British novelist Muriel Spark this past weekend. I have had Memento Mori on my shelf for some time, but have not gotten around to reading it.
This New Directions edition was just $1 at Book-Off, which is a Japanese-based used book store with all sorts of English-language gems inside.
I have begun reading A Far Cry and see why Spark has such a stellar reputation–she is a masterful writer.
Although I’m tempted to call this talk by Sir Ken Robinson “Humanism Gone Wild”–for Robinson surely views mankind as an immanently perfectible being if only given the right sort of parental and societal support (I don’t share this view )–it is too engaging and interesting a lecture not to recommend to everyone.
I’d also like to recommend an interview with Robinson on the fine radio program “Radio Open Source” hosted by Christopher Lydon. Please watch the Robinson lecture here:
It’s excellent news to learn that novelist Walker Percy may be getting more attention with the upcoming documentary Walker Percy: A Documentary Film. A man of the South and a Roman Catholic, his books tackle the big moral and spiritual questions that modern novelists, regrettably, have long since abandoned.
It’s interesting how often his novel The Moviegoer, which won the National Book Award in 1962, is mentioned as a beloved book by writer of all stripes. I recently heard an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz who cited the book as a special influence on him as a teenager. “I think it was the first time I read something that provoked in me a level of emotion that painting did,” He said. “I loved Percy’s passion for philosophical insight and his lyrical, ever-spiraling ideas.”
Of his own work, Percy said he was looking for:
A theory of man, man as more than organism, more than consumer––man the wayfarer, man the pilgrim, man in transit, on a journey.
The film will appear on PBS next month. Watch a preview:
In many ways I’m the last person to appreciate a talk by a famous international chef–I’m picky, American and provincial in my eating habits–yet I found this discussion by Marco Pierre White fascinating and inspiring. He is a charming, intelligent man who understands both his craft and his place in the world. The chef as artist proves true in Mr. White’s case.
I recently published an essay on the online literary site The Millions titled, “Paris, Wikipedia and My Middle Age Crisis.”
Each man’s middle age crisis begins at an indeterminate age and offers a peculiar window into the architecture of masculine decline. In this respect it mimics death, which is both punctual and ruthlessly efficient in its demolitions. For many men, the crisis begins with the fear that your Emersonian Self-Reliance is spent, or even worse, you’ve sucked so deeply on the marrow of life that you are now as penniless as Henry David Thoreau . . . Go here to read the full essay.