![]() ![]() The Well is exactly what I would expect from a short novel by this author. Her characters are real people, struggling against their inner selves as well as one another, making mistakes and making me root for them to grow strong and true. She writes with a sort of effortless assurance, a quiet wisdom that doesn't try to be profound it simply is. Taylor's voice not only captures the spirit of her young protagonist but also crafts some lovely prose. ![]() I consider Roll of Thunder to be one of the best middle-grade books ever. ![]() The Logans are willing to share water with black and white alike, but their generosity isn't appreciated by everyone. It's 1910 in Mississippi, a summer of drought, and the well on the Logans' land is the only one that hasn't run dry. In this short novel, David is ten years old and his brother Hammer is fourteen. Those who have read will recognize David Logan as the father of Cassie and her brothers. ![]()
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![]() The desire to put it on screen is understandable. Lindbergh, like his friend Henry Ford (who becomes his secretary of the Interior here), was historically anti-Semitic - Roth supplies Lindbergh’s own writing in an appendix as proof - and at the very least tolerant of Hitler and warm to his views on race. The novel, which takes the form of a historical memoir - its central character is Philip Roth of Weequahic, a neighborhood in Newark, N.J., the writer’s own hometown - imagines a world in which the aviator Charles Lindbergh, put forward as an antiwar candidate by Republicans, is elected president over incumbent Franklin Roosevelt in 1940. Like Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 “It Can’t Happen Here,” whose title Roth quotes, and the series quotes in turn, it’s a speculative tale of creeping American fascism in the run-up to World War II - which is to say, tailor-made for 2020. ![]() Philip Roth’s 2004 dystopian alternate-history novel, “The Plot Against America,” has become an HBO miniseries, created by “The Corner,” “The Wire” and “Generation Kill” collaborators David Simon and Ed Burns. ![]() ![]() When Hieronimo finds Horatio hanged in the garden and swears revenge, his wife, Isabella, suggests he wait. It is implied throughout the play that revenge is ultimately God’s responsibility and is not to be taken into the hands of man. Is it God’s responsibility, or the law’s? Or is it his own responsibility as a father? Eventualy, Hieronimo reluctantly takes it upon himself to avenge Horatio’s death, but through The Spanish Tragedy, Kyd suggests that even when revenge seems like the only way to get justice, it’s still not worth it. Hieronimo demands revenge however, he questions whose responsibility it is to seek it. After Hieronimo’s son, Horatio, a war hero and honorable man, is murdered by Lorenzo, the son of the Duke of Castile and the nephew of the King of Spain, Hieronimo swears justice for his son. Revenge motivates several of the characters, but the play focuses mainly on the story of Hieronimo, the Knight Marshal of Spain. ![]() The Spanish Tragedy paved the way for other revenge plays of the day-such as Hamlet by William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy-and like other revenge plays, Kyd’s tragedy explores revenge and the ethics of taking justice into one’s own hands. ![]() Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedy is widely regarded as the very first revenge play of the Elizabethan era. ![]() |