To borrow from Flannery O’Connor, The Secret History might not be Christ-centered, but it is certainly Christ-haunted. As such, the novel makes for excellent Lenten reading.
Fresh off forming Israel’s most right-wing government ever, Bibi Netanyahu appears in his recently published memoir as the Jewish people’s shrewdest leader since King Solomon.
Having withstood the test of time, this fine revival of Dialogues des Carmélites should be a lesson to the Met Opera management as it seeks a new direction.
The Meaning of Birth presents a dynamic struggle to articulate the beauty of our being born and other wisdom necessary to recover the metaphysics of being ‘pro-birth.’
Daniel Craig’s southern detective dressed like Cary Grant invokes the gravitas of tradition against postmodernity’s myth of the tech-disruptor, together with a heroine armed with a perfect disinterest in wealth.
Penguin’s choice to publish Marvel comics under their “Classics” label is provocative, but is it justified? This month’s comics column considers this question while reviewing the new Penguin volumes.
Apocalyptic fiction will tend to promote either conformity or radicality, depending on whether the source of impending destruction is identified with the powers-that-be or some rebel force.
Sin is a perennial reality that we cannot eradicate through political will. Instead, we are called to heal the world. One of the best dramatic considerations of this is Shakespeare’s hilarious, beautiful, and criminally overlooked play, Measure for Measure.
Bannon is attracted to a mystical form of Traditionalism, although his version of it is very unconventional. He is an American traditionalist who views the working class as the salt of the earth uncorrupted by liberal modernity.
If one picked up this book expecting a genuine defence of COVID restrictions, one would soon be disabused of that notion. It is both hilarious and deadly serious, obliging the reader to remember all the traumas that befell us.
The score of Tristan, an opera that commands what Dudamel claims to be his obsession, radiated brilliantly with a fine Gallic touch from the Opéra’s orchestra.
In this biography, Christopher J. Farrell describes an extinct species—a muscular liberal and hardcore anti-Communist. It is interesting to read about a man like Earle in an era where, according to progressives, there are mere inches between calling for tax cuts and becoming Hitler.
Fighting Back does more than simply hope that the dire state of our culture can be reversed. It offers practical strategies, across every aspect of life, for turning things around and emerging victorious.
Are comics, as some Francophones argue, a distinct ‘9th art’? In the first of a monthly series, Felix James Miller argues they are and introduces readers to some of the delights of the art form.
Dante’s La Vita Nuova is indisputably the work of a young man, a man whose passions (and poetic compositions) are still discovering the place they ought to have in the world. Thankfully, though, Dante’s ‘immature’ juvenilia is far greater and more penetrating a work than most poets can ever compose in the entire course of their lives.
An apt but uncharitable description of Medea’s incongruities might paraphrase Woody Allen’s description of a monster as a being with the body of a crab and the head of a social worker to say that Cherubini’s work sounds like a Mozart opera with a Beethoven overture.
Social justice activism is a religion in that it provides a set of beliefs. These beliefs are to be accepted unquestioningly, and a common language develops between the people involved by which they may identify one another and interrogate and expel heretics.
Pell’s Prison Journal provides an inspiring example of how to endure attacks while loving our persecutors. Perhaps his serene approach can show our post-Christian civilization the beauty of Christian love and forgiveness.
Alain de Botton’s book tells us that we can and should regain hope about the future of our homes and cities. Architecture has been in a sad state in the West for many decades, but there are also glimmers of promise.
Scholdt pays tribute to both the aesthetic achievements and the courage of writers who were persecuted and ostracized during the Nazi era. He also considers the significance of their resistance in the Nazi years for our own tumultuous times.
Through scarcely credible naïveté, Robinson seems to believe that he has disposed of Bryant’s ethical pretensions. His hubris calls to mind those self-destructive British Labour parliamentarians who elicited the jibe that, when granted a choice of weapons, they always selected boomerangs.
Nothing seems wrong with a discerning use of Netflix. But the company’s final goals, Chanot wishes to remind us, are anything but harmless and are bound to destroy the virtues we care to preserve within our families.
Brinkmann’s book is a respectful, thoughtful tome seeking to question faith honestly. He freely admits that he is simultaneously sceptical on issues of faith and belief and deeply fascinated by religion.
Henry James praised Ivan Turgenev because, though the man possessed a pessimistic streak, in his novels he painted tender pictures that bled sympathy for all.