In honor of the September 8 birthdays of
- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (The Killer Angels),
- Peter Sellers (“Doctor Strangelove”), and
- Patsy Cline (“Crazy”):
From a website on Donna Tartt‘s novel The Secret History…
“It is like a storyteller looking up suddenly into the eyes of his audience across the embers of a once blazing fire…
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…the reader feels privy to the secrets of human experience by their passage down through the ages; the telling and re-telling. A phrase from the ghost in Hamlet comes to mind: ‘I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / |
This work of literature seems especially relevant at the start of a new school year, and in light of my remarks below about ancient Greek religion. One should, when praising Apollo, never forget that Dionysus is also a powerful god.
For those who prefer film to the written word, I recommend “Barton Fink” as especially appropriate viewing for the High Holy Days. Judy Davis (my favorite actress) plays a Faulkner-figure’s “secretary” who actually writes most of his scripts.
Tartt is herself from Faulkner country. For her next book, see this page from Square Books, 160 Courthouse Square, Oxford, Misssissippi.
Let us pray that Tartt fares better in real life than Davis did in the movie.
As music for the High Holy Days, I recommend Don Henley’s “The Garden of Allah.” For some background on the actual Garden of Allah Hotel at 8080 Sunset Boulevard (where “Barton Fink” might have taken place), see