The smell of the battlefield is, quite often, a recurrent theme in the ‘war is hell‘ school of military writing. As the dead decay, slowly putrefying in the open, their remain are worked on by maggots and flies and slowly leach into the ground beneath them. The malodorous miasma that results from these corpses hangsContinue reading “War is Hell – I: The Battlefield as Open Toilet”
Category Archives: Writing
The Pleasures of “Emotional Difficulties”
In his review of several exhibitions showcasing the work of Félix Vallotton, Julian Bell writes: Vallotton is not so much an autobiographical artist as an artist who coolly and procedurally recognizes that his own emotional difficulties might supply him with viable imaginative material. Vallotton wouldn’t be the first or last artist to recognize this, ofContinue reading “The Pleasures of “Emotional Difficulties””
On Reading the Unreadable (or Persisting)
Michael Greenberg writes of Jorge Luis Borges: He advises his students to leave a book if it bores them: “that book was not written for you,” no matter its reputation or fame. Good advice, but not easily followed. Borges’ advice isn’t easy to follow because the decision to continue reading is just another instance ofContinue reading “On Reading the Unreadable (or Persisting)”
Of Annapurnas and Men: Maurice Herzog’s Epic Lives On
Just over sixty-four years ago, on June 3rd 1950, a pair of French mountaineers, Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, stood on the summit of Annapurna, the world’s tenth highest peak. It was the first time mountaineers had succeeded in climbing a peak above eight thousand meters altitude. The French pair’s trials and travails were notContinue reading “Of Annapurnas and Men: Maurice Herzog’s Epic Lives On”
Yosemite and Sequoia: Visiting John Muir’s Playgrounds
Last week, my family and I traveled to California; more precisely, to Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks. (We visited family in Los Angeles as well.) Superlatives for national parks are a dime-a-dozen, so most writing on them is doomed to cliche. But let me press on regardless. The landscapes of these parks, likeContinue reading “Yosemite and Sequoia: Visiting John Muir’s Playgrounds”
Constantine Rafinesque’s Anticipation of Evolutionary Theory
The opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for Constantine Rafinesque notes that he was: [A] nineteenth-century polymath who made notable contributions to botany, zoology, the study ofprehistoric earthworks in North America and ancient Mesoamerican linguistics. It then continues: Rafinesque was eccentric, and is often portrayed as an “erratic genius”.[1] He was an autodidact who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. HeContinue reading “Constantine Rafinesque’s Anticipation of Evolutionary Theory”
Academic Writing In Philosophy: On Finding Older Writing Samples
Yesterday, while cleaning up an old homepage of mine, I found some old papers written while I was in graduate school. Overcome by curiosity–and rather recklessly, if I may say so–I converted the old Postscript format to PDF, and took a closer look. The first is titled ‘No Cognition Without Representation’; its abstract reads: AContinue reading “Academic Writing In Philosophy: On Finding Older Writing Samples”
Guns and Speech, Gunslingers and Writers
Patrick Blanchfield examines some of the troubling constitutional questions raised by the gun-toting folks who showed up to protect Cliven Bundy in Nevada: According to open carry advocates, their presence in public space represents more than just an expression of their Second Amendment rights, it’s a statement, an “educational,” communicative act — in short, anContinue reading “Guns and Speech, Gunslingers and Writers”
Falling Off the Wagon
I had a bad week. Starting Friday April 18th, my brain went on the blink. In the following nine days, I only blogged twice (instead of my usual daily schedule), went to the gym only three times (instead of my scheduled seven times), read no books, and only entered into minor bouts of editing. IContinue reading “Falling Off the Wagon”
Lord Byron on the Writerly Compulsion
In Oryx and Crake, Crake quotes Lord Byron:¹ What is it Byron said? Who’d write if they could do otherwise? Something like that. Who indeed? Byron’s supposed description² of writerly obsession is by now familiar to us: writers write because they have to, they must, they can do little other; their activity is as much compelledContinue reading “Lord Byron on the Writerly Compulsion”
Samir Chopra 