Ron Gilmour

Print PDF

I’ve seen their “Libertas”-becrested spines scattered among the classics in used book stores, but had never paid much attention to them. They are the Harvard Classics, and I guess they’re something of a cultural institution, or at least were a few generations ago. They are the work of Harvard president Charles William Eliot (1834-1926). Eliot had remarked that “a five-foot shelf would hold books enough to give in the course of years a good substitute for a liberal education.” The publisher P.F. Collier & Son invited him to “make it so,” and thus were the Harvard Classics born.
Continue reading →

Print PDF

Folklore is filled with stories of hapless humans who find themselves captives in the Land of Fairy and of their rescue by brave knights and enchanters. But never has such a tale been told like this. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a first novel by Susanna Clarke, is a sprawling masterpiece of fantasy that examines the problems of practical magic and the challenges of dealing with fairies from a modern Victorian perspective.
Continue reading →

Print PDF

Inspired both by Harold Bloom and by a couple of excellent local productions I’ve seen recently, I have decided to get serious about Shakespeare. In the past year, I’ve read Lear (for the first time!) and re-visited Hamlet and Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve been reluctant to blog about these for obvious reasons: who can say anything new about Shakespeare?
Continue reading →

Print PDF

I’m a Richard Dawkins fan from way back. When I was a freshman biology major at Florida State, one of my professors recommended The Selfish Gene, which remains one of my favorite science books. (I was not convinced then, nor am I now, of the usefulness of Dawkins’s meme theory, but that’s a minor quibble.) I also read The Blind Watchmaker, which solidified my opinion of Dawkins as a both a great rationalist and a great poet of nature.
Continue reading →

Print PDF

Like most readers, I am frequently troubled by the fact that there are far more books out there that I want to read than I am ever likely to. Consequently, I have a dangerous fascination with “great book” lists, which offer the reassuringly pre-post-modern view that some answers to the question “What shall I read?” are better than others.
Continue reading →

Print PDF

Even by Victorian standards, Our Mutual Friend is a sprawling work. I mean that not only in terms of its size, which is formidable, but also its complexity of plot and its enormous cast of characters. At heart it is a comedy, if not a sort of fairy tale, although it wouldn’t be Dickens if there were not some pathetic moments. Most notable among these is the sick bed (the reader will incorrectly assume that it is a death bed) marriage of Eugene Wrayburn and Lizzie Hexam.
Continue reading →

Print PDF

Some years ago, I decided to try my hand at learning Tibetan. Honestly, I didn’t make it much past the alphabet and a smattering of simple words. But I did learn one interesting thing from my teacher, which is that the Tibetan people view the written word as inherently sacred. Language lessons were preceded by a prayer to Manjushri and even my pages of infantile scribbles were never allowed to touch the floor.
Continue reading →