Literary Canons and the Reckoning of National Heritages
In both France and the United States, literature has always been a prime site for these struggles over memory—what gets remembered, and how.
Alexandre Dumas
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Nutcracker in 2016
Recently I joke tweeted “What The Nutcracker’s Battle With the Rat King Taught Us About Trump Resistance,” as if I were writing that piece. I’m not. Last week, I traveled to Boston to watch my sister perform in her nineteenth year of Nutcracker, and the next day we sat in the Massachusetts State House, watching the state’s electors vote for Hillary Clinton. It seemed that Hoffmann’s tale had nothing to with 2016, and that issued a challenge.
Six Books to Light the Way Through the Darkest Night(s) of Your Soul
John Gardner once wrote, “If there is good to be said, the writer should say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say it in a way that reflects the truth that, though we see the evil, we choose to continue among the living.” While I couldn’t agree more with Mr….