Summary: Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a work of speculative fiction that celebrates humanity’s ability to endure and laments our tendency to self-destruct. Beginning 600 years after a catastrophic “Flame Deluge” (i.e. late-20th-century nuclear war), Part One introduces the “Order of Saint Leibowitz,” a group of Catholic monks dedicated to preserving precious scraps [...]
Summary: The Master and Margarita is a work of magical realism by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. The story takes place in Moscow during a brief but tumultuous visit from Satan and a retinue of his followers, who kick off all kinds of macabre mischief upon their arrival. Caught up in the chaos are the eponymous Master [...]
Summary: William K. Rawlins’s The Compass of Friendship is an excellent follow-up to Friendship Matters. Rawlins utilizes the same dialectical framework from his first book but expands his research on friendship into new territory. The opening chapters lay out Rawlins’s general theories of friendship, and the latter chapters examine specific types of friendships such as cross-sex, cross-race, [...]
Summary: Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead is a superb contribution to the American literary tradition. The book is narrated by John Ames, a preacher from the fictional town of Gilead, Iowa. It’s the late 1950s, and Ames is approaching the end of his life. Before giving up the ghost, he decides to write a missive to his young son [...]
Summary: N.K. Jemisin’s The Stone Sky is the third and final book in her Broken Earth trilogy. It presents the concluding events of Essun and Nassun’s narratives, revealing how the fate of the world is decided by these two women and their companions. Jemisin also takes us on a journey through Hoa’s memory of how The Shattering occurred, [...]
Summary: N.K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate is the middle book in her Broken Earth trilogy. Jemisin invites us deeper into the Stillness, continuing the story of Essun and some familiar supporting characters from the first novel (see my review of The Fifth Season for an overview). In The Obelisk Gate, we learn more about the history of the Stillness, including the mythology of [...]
My Dear and Honoured Rilke, I have received your letters We all did–– Joyce’s “general postoffice of human life” was Not too late After all Your letters, first posted Then unposted–– Wash us clean across the generations Bring us the quiet and careful wisdom You sought in Solitude Criticism won’t bring us near to art [...]
Summary: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is the first installment of The Broken Earth, a fantasy trilogy set on a vast continent called the Stillness, “which is not still even on a good day” (7). The inhabitants of the Stillness experience frequent seismic events and other natural disasters, including brutal “Fifth Seasons”––long winters lasting six months or more that [...]
I. Grabbing the Wheel It’s like, we’ve been in a car with a brick on the gas pedal and no one at the wheel, careening down the road, running over people and crashing into things. We’re still in the car. We can’t get out of the car. But someone could at least grab the [...]
Summary: Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land is a stunning and elegant work of modern fiction. Taking inspiration from an ancient novel by Antonius Diogenes that survives merely as “a few papyrus fragments” and a “ninth-century plot summary” (Author’s Note), Doerr weaves together three narrative arcs from different eras in humanity’s past, present, and future. One takes place during [...]