The Civil Tongue

The Civil Tongue

Wonder and Wrath by A. M. Juster. Paul Dry Books, 2020. Paperback, 85 pages, $14.95. Reviewed by Dan Rattelle It is difficult to imagine a more upstanding literary citizen than A. M. Juster. His work as an editor, lately of First Things and now at Plough,...
Can Whimsy Save the Small-Town Novel?

Can Whimsy Save the Small-Town Novel?

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger. Grove Press, 2018. Paperback, 320 pages, $17. Reviewed by Matt Miller Small towns in American fiction have a history as varied as the landscapes they inhabit. Often stifling or enervating, as in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sherwood...
From Shakespeare to Second Life

From Shakespeare to Second Life

Daniel Buck Most video games exist for crass entertainment. Others rise above with compelling storylines but remain pop-art at best. A rare few, however, boast the philosophical weight of a nineteenth-century Russian novel. Conservatives overlook this final category...

Beyond Cancel Culture

O’Connor, Updike, and the Literature of Self-Recrimination Michial Farmer The recent intra-literati arguments about Flannery O’Connor’s racism are, if nothing else, hard proof that ideas have consequences. Not long after the police killing of George Floyd ignited...
Skewering the Revolutionary Consciousness

Skewering the Revolutionary Consciousness

Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov Translated by Mirra Ginsburg. Grove Press, 1968. Paperback, 123 page, $16. By Katya Sedgwick In June, when Black Lives Matter riots erupted in American cities, conservatives began rereading Tom Wolfe for insides on race relations. I,...