Infinite Jest Infinite Jest
Dave Eggers's memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, has been a bit too loudly hyped as an ironic tearjerker, and a media juggernaut has branded its author a tragic h...
Mar 2, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Elise Harris
Stations of the Cross Stations of the Cross
Perhaps no contemporary writer has more singlemindedly mined a single vein of literary ore than E.L. Doctorow has New York City, especially the New York of the past.
Feb 23, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Melvin Jules Bukiet
Salvation in South Africa Salvation in South Africa
Blessed with a great subject, afflicted with it too, J.M. Coetzee has remade its meanings in the light of metaphor often no further from us than our own bodies.
Feb 16, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Joseph McElroy
Joseph Heller Joseph Heller
Nelson Algren's 1961 review of Catch-22 is at www.thenation.com.
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Christopher Hitchens
Algren’s Question Algren’s Question
He would hang his coat neatly over the back of his chair in the leaden station-house twilight, say he was beat from lack of sleep and lay his head across his arms upon the query-...
Dec 2, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Dan Simon
Remains of the Day Remains of the Day
Every Wednesday since January 1992, an indefatigable group of halmonis (Korean for "grandmothers") in their 70s and 80s have led a rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seo...
Oct 7, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Margaret Juhae Lee
Les Étrangers Les Étrangers
Sagesse (meaning "wisdom") LaBasse, the narrator of Claire Messud's second novel, The Last Life, is French-Algerian on her father's side and American on her mother's.
Sep 30, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Jay Parini
Their Myths and Ours Their Myths and Ours
Karen Rosenberg has taught Russian literary history in the United States and Austria.
Sep 30, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Karen Rosenberg
Decolonizing the Mind Decolonizing the Mind
As Hawaii's first American century comes to an end, marking grim anniversaries of overthrow and forced annexation by the United States, a groundswell for Native Hawaiian sovereig...
Sep 16, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Mindy Pennybacker