Critical Essays Archive
The Humanity of True Crime’s Victims
In two books, Maggie Nelson manages to recount the murder of her aunt, Jane, in terms that don’t elide the true horror of the situation, while keeping Jane’s voice firmly centered for readers.
The Body in Distress
Our bodies can be instruments, weapons, sources of joy and pleasure and intense turmoil. Two books by Jess Arndt and Ron Dahan explore this, demonstrating all that our bodies can do and signify.
Silence in Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus and Take This Stallion
For Anaïs Duplan, the most effective way to present a new vision of social relations is to model its workings for the reader, to involve them and implicate them within its structures.
The Sociopolitical Impact of Christ Stopped at Eboli
While it would be a mistake to attribute a specific motive to Carlo Levi’s writing, his 1945 memoir poses an interesting example of what a political text can realistically achieve.
Mother of All Fears
All of us dread recognizing the one true powerlessness we have in the world: that ultimate impotence in the face of death. But more than anyone else, a mother is expected to feel powerful in this fight against mortality. Her primary job is to fight death, calmly, every day.
The Burning Home in Purple Hibiscus
Living under a dictatorship means watching your homeland, your home, catch fire. You can leave and hope that all your loved ones make it out too, or you can stay and fight, hoping you don’t die from the burns—under a dictatorship, no one gets away.
The Landscape of Memory
For most of us, memory supplies meaning and connection to our past selves, our place of origin, a greater world. Memory gives us meaning.
Ugliness in Sonallah Ibrahim’s That Smell and Notes from Prison
Despite the trouble and humiliation Ibrahim endured as a political prisoner and later as a writer in attempting to publish his work, the timeless value of his lessons is undeniable: the impositions of decency and social and literary norms often serve only to exacerbate the problems they claim to
The Secret Horror of The Haunting of Hill House
A secret horror isn’t magically eradicated because its spoken aloud. Rather, its implications spread, deepen, further infiltrating our complex web of relationships, our motivations, our dreams. In fact, some horrors can’t be named; the words fail us.
Henry James on Honoré Daumier
For an artist whose career ended with little recognition, the yearly international exhibitions featuring Daumier’s work attest to the staying power of his vision. For James, this embodies the filial connection between the artist and the novelist—with all the love and strife that implies.