Author Archives: Lee

Notes on Linda Yablonsky, The Story of Junk

Posted on August 10, 2022 by Lee

How can a person suffer this much and still want to go on living? He’s dying in a hospital bed, and even as he talks to her his eyes keep fluttering up to the TV screen. “He still wants to … Continue reading →

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Phaethon

Posted on August 5, 2022 by Lee

His mother has always told him that his father is Helios, the sun, but now his friends tease him. “Your mother is a liar,” says Epaphus. “No one knows who your father is, and so she told you a story. … Continue reading →

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Notes on Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy: Royal Assassin

Posted on July 20, 2022 by Lee

What is a life for? This is the question that Fitz is asking again and again, in one form or another, as he tries to find his place in the world and wonders whether it’s all worth it. It’s easy … Continue reading →

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Notes on Bleak House: “Bell Yard”

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Lee

Mr Skimpole reflects on “how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes.” There’s no other way things can adapt. Let nature take its course. Principle of non-resistance. This is how Mr Skimpole lives his own life, never working or worrying. Mr … Continue reading →

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Notes on the Magic Mountain: “Mynheer Peeperkorn”

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Lee

A more than usual appreciation of – linked to his need for – alcoholic drinks. He appears to chew the liquid before it goes down, he spends so long savouring it. His head must be blurry from all he drinks … Continue reading →

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Notes on The Magic Mountain: “By the Ocean of Time”

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Lee

Not to deny reason, but to set limits to it. Beyond the limit of reason is life. If reason were allowed to dominate all, there would be no room for life, which after all needs room to experiment, and see … Continue reading →

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Notes on The Magic Mountain: “A Soldier, and Brave”

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Lee

“I am glad to see that despite your enthusiasm for freedom and progress, you have some feeling for serious things.” So says Naphta to Settembrini as they stand at the deathbed of the young man. What could be more serious … Continue reading →

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Notes on The Magic Mountain: “Snow”

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Lee

“What he had dreamed was already fading from his mind.” So vivid the dream, so full of meaning, and as he lay there in the snow he had vowed to live for love and virtue, and never to let death … Continue reading →

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Notes on The Magic Mountain: “Operationes Spirituales”

Posted on June 29, 2022 by Lee

There is no chance that Ludovico Settembrini and Leo Naphta, the intellectuals portrayed in The Magic Mountain, will ever agree with each other. If one of them says something, you can guarantee that the other will say the opposite. It … Continue reading →

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Notes on The Magic Mountain: “An Attack, and a Repulse”

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Lee

Hans Castorp knows something we don’t. You might wonder why a book like The Magic Mountain is so long: well, it treats of a subject impossible to put into so many words. So you need to sit with it a … Continue reading →

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