Category: REVIEW

Korngold and Dvořák Close Palm Beach Symphony Season

It is hard to imagine a more complex piece than Korngold’s Violin Concerto. It stands on the cusp of classical music’s transformation from an art form confined to the concert hall, into a multimedia concept.

A Centurion Not of Caesar but of Christ

One figure worthy of rediscovery, especially for those of a conservative or religious inclination, is the French soldier and writer Ernest Psichari who converted during his time as a soldier between 1909 and 1912, in what is today Mauritania.

The Long Slow Death of Hong Kong

While I agree with the aims and even admire the methods of the protesters of 2019 to 2020, it is likely that when China does assume full control of the Hong Kong territory, they will have made things worse.

Redeeming Our Asymmetric Culture War

Today, the cultural warfare is nothing if not asymmetric. History and culture are important enough to merit a lively debate, but the one-sided onslaught on everything from Western art to our national heroes, thunders Murray, should not be indulged for a moment longer.

Revealing the Dark Angel

What Lionel Johnson awaited was a biographer who shared both his deep Faith and his soaring erudition in order to convey his work both in its true significance to its author, and on its own terms. With Robert Asch, Johnson has at last found him.

Rehabilitating the Dismal Science

In this massive study, Gregory Collins is able to smoothly blend Burke’s economic thought with his thoughts on politics and human nature.

A French History of Traditionalists

The subject of these pages is, in a broad sense, religious—Catholic—traditionalists. Yves Chiron also explains why being a ‘traditionalist’ is not exactly the same as being a ‘traditional’ Catholic.

Feverish Episodes of Nazi Reverie

As a work of serial military fabulism, Ezquerra’s book is an interesting cultural artifact. I laughed more than once at the author’s sheer gall, but Ezquerra himself is an unpleasant figure. A literary liar is bad enough; a Nazi literary liar seems even more obscene.

Heaven Bleeds Backwards into our Lives

The novel illustrates St. Catherine of Siena’s famous quote, “The path to Heaven is Heaven.” St. Catherine did not say whether the path felt like Heaven at the time, but she was certain that it was, in all essentials, Heaven. In other words, Heaven bleeds backwards into our lives, until every moment is colored with its otherworldly hues. That is the feat Vodolazkin accomplishes in this novel.

A Light Out of the Prisons of Atheist Albania

A Light Out of the Prisons of Atheist Albania

It is almost as if Don Simon Jubani was prepared to be a political prisoner. His collaborators and admirers describe him as “a nut with a hard shell,” “tough,” “passionate for the truth,” “uncompromising,” “provocative and justice-seeking,” and “highly intelligent though impatient.” He was an athletic priest (a former soccer star) who ministered to five mountainous rural parishes in the Mirdita region before he was arrested in 1963. The toughness comes across in print.

December 27, 2021
Repin Revisited

Repin Revisited

A major retrospective of the work of the Russian painter Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is being held for the first time in Paris at the Petit Palais from October 2021 to the end of January 2022.

December 26, 2021
Under Scrutiny: No International Right to Abortion

Under Scrutiny: No International Right to Abortion

The judicial designation of abortion as a right leads to inevitable consequences in other legal spheres. “Failure to protect human life in one area of law will lead to failure elsewhere. Life must either be protected everywhere, or it is at risk everywhere.”

December 19, 2021
Reviving a Classic Tragedy: Romeo and Juliet at The Royal Ballet

Reviving a Classic Tragedy: Romeo and Juliet at The Royal Ballet

Early in his tenure, Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink had led one of the staples of the company’s ballet repertoire, MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, set to a score by the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. It was therefore fitting that a recent performance of this revival was dedicated to his memory.

December 15, 2021
The End of Outremer

The End of Outremer

Canadian-Lebanese writer Nader Moumneh’s 2018 book fills a useful niche in that it is a sympathetic and detailed overview of the main Lebanese Christian military-political formation born during the Lebanese Civil War, a formation that became a leading Lebanese nationalist political party after the war ended.

December 13, 2021
Ahmari & the Challenge of Tradition

Ahmari & the Challenge of Tradition

When I agreed to review Sohrab Ahmari’s newest book, I wasn’t expecting to learn anything I didn’t know before. I

Misunderstanding Bannon

Misunderstanding Bannon

Unlike other ‘Bannon-watchers’—many of who seem unable to resist casting him as a Rasputin-like figure, while being simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by his insistence on speaking in symbolic and often apocalyptic terms—Teitelbaum approaches his subject from an unlikely angle.

June 19, 2020