The Anatomy of the Good
Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices by Jennifer A. Herdt. University of Chicago Press, [2008] 2012. Paper, 467 pages, $35.“’Tis hard to believe,” wrote Michel de Montaigne in his essay “On Virtue,” “that these so elevated qualities in a man can so...
Natural Law or Nihilism?
The Wise Men Know What Wicked Things Are Written on the Sky by Russell Kirk. Regnery Gateway (1987), 132 pp. Although Dr. Kirk knows how hard the tempest of our time really rages, he has not fled or been driven to the heath like Lear or Lear’s fool. His insight is...Endless Game of Thrones
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin (5 of 7 planned volumes). Bantam, 1996–2012. Paper, 5232 pages, $75. The embarrassment of narrative in a radically skeptical postmodern world is that it implies meaning. Simply constructing a story with beginning,...
Dos Passos: A Reassessment
Jean-Paul Sartre once called John Dos Passos [1896–1970] “the greatest novelist of the century,” a judgment which he did not hold alone.[1] Yet now, though Dos Passos has continued to write, few seem willing to rate him so highly. His biographer, John Wrenn, states...
How Daniel Flynn found Frank Meyer’s lost papers is a story almost as remarkable as Meyer’s life itself. Bill Meehan captures it well in this review: