Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookMartia Ironica: Four War Poems‘Every war is ironic,’ says Paul Fussell, in The Great War and Modern Memory, ‘because every war is worse than expected. Every war…2d ago2d ago
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookWalter Scott, ‘A Legend of Montrose’ (1819)[Previously within this very Notebook: The Bride of Lammermoor (1819); Kenilworth (1821); The Pirate (1821/22); The Fortunes of Nigel…5d ago5d ago
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookWalter Scott, ‘The Bride of Lammermoor’ (1819)[After a bit of a haitus, I’m back to Scott blogging. Previously within this very Notebook: Kenilworth (1821); The Pirate (1821/22); The…Jul 14Jul 14
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookStrange Lights on MarsAt the end of the nineteenth-century E. S. Holden [‘Bright Projections at the Terminator of Mars’, Publications of the Astronomical Society…Jul 11Jul 11
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookChastityScot George Buchanan was one of the most famous poets in sixteenth-century Europe. Shakespeare? Never heard of him. Spenser, Marlowe…Jul 10Jul 10
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookOn WormsAfter returning from his voyage on HMS Beagle, collecting many specimens and starting to formulate his theory of evolution, Darwin took out…Jul 4Jul 4
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookCharles Taylor, “Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment” (Harvard University Press…This is, as we are informed at the beginning of its first chapter, a follow-up to Taylor’s The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human…Jul 34Jul 34
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookPainting and Sculpture: a Speculative Cultural HistoryThoughts pursuant to reading Gertrude Levy’s Gate of Horn (1948; I read the second edition, 1963 ) — hardly the most up-to-date piece of…Jul 11Jul 11
Adam RobertsinAdam’s Notebook‘The Sultan Who Put His Head In The Pail Of Water’In Hard Times (1854), young Louisa marries the crass, blustering mill-owner Bounderby, thirty years her senior, though she does not love…Jun 29Jun 29
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookBarry Unsworth, ‘Pascali’s Island’ (1980)I read Pascali’s Island back in 1980, in this very tie-in paperback edition, where the positioning of the orange splash across the bottom…Jun 252Jun 252