Category: Literature

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

As Stalin’s purges neared their apogee, show trials in Moscow featured heroes of the Russian Revolution confessing to the most astonishing things: that they had conspired with foreign powers, that they had plotted to kill Stalin; that they had knowingly and willfully wrecked whole sectors of the economy; and more. How could these men — …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/11/10/darkness-at-noon-by-arthur-koestler/

The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood

Yes, another dystopian novel (trilogy) by the intelligent and tricksy Margaret Atwood. The three books, in order, are Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam. I read good reviews about it, and bad reviews about it, and lukewarm reviews about it, but in the end all that matters is that I enjoyed …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/25/the-maddaddam-trilogy-by-margaret-atwood/

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Walker Percy’s foreword to the book cannot be bettered: Perhaps the best way to introduce this novel — which on my third reading of it astounds me even more than the first — is to tell of my first encounter with it. While I was teaching at Loyola in 1976 I began to get telephone …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/09/20/a-confederacy-of-dunces-by-john-kennedy-toole/

The Chronicles of the Black Company by Glenn Cook

“The Chronicles of the Black Company ” is a dark epic fantasy by Glenn Cook. It depicts the travels of the Black Company a band of ruthless mercenaries as they switch from side to side. It is told in the voice of the Company’s surgeon and chronicler who’s fantasies about the ruling lady take him …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/09/12/the-chronicles-of-the-black-company-by-glenn-cook/

King John by William Shakespeare

This play is surprisingly good for one of Shakespeare’s lesser known works. It is a story of shifting alliances and treachery in a world that is constantly uncertain. Surprisingly, a character known simply as “the Bastard,” who is surely fictional, is the central and most sympathetic character in the story, proving himself a pole of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/04/19/king-john-by-william-shakespeare/

Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Celine has a way of writing about perfectly horrible experiences in a way that makes you laugh out loud. This book is a work of genius, although not quite as good as *Journey to the End of Night*. It’s too bad he didn’t write more. He has an uncanny way of finding humor in all …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/08/12/death-on-the-installment-plan-by-louis-ferdinand-celine-2/

Coriolanus by William Shakespeare

The title character is that rare example of a man who is honorable to the point where his honor is insufferable. He distinguishes himeself in war–no small thing among the naturally warlike Romans–but cannot abide lowering himself to curry favor with the public. The story features some memorable passages from both the popular and the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/10/22/coriolanus-by-william-shakespeare/

Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

This novel was BRILLIANT. I laughed out loud all the way through it. Celine is part Vonnegut and part Bukowski, a French genius of both tragedy and comedy.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/11/22/journey-to-the-end-of-the-night-by-louis-ferdinand-celine/