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Criticism

Death in A Christmas Carol: The Impossible Representation

October 21, 2024

Criticism

academia, criticism, death, Gothic, Victorian

It’s been a while since I shared something from my academic vault of uselessness… Well, alright; knowledge and thought are never useless; academia (the way it’s run nowadays) might be. But I digress. The following post on death in A Christmas Carol is a modified excerpt (pp. 148-149) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press.

Also take a look at my posts on religion in A Christmas Carol and, especially, Gothic Immortality in Dickens’s work – the present post forms a nice pair with the latter.

death in A Christmas Carol. Ai render of Scrooge facing the third ghost
Here’s an AI render of how an impressionist painting of the scene would’ve perhaps looked like
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Review of I Fear My Pain Interests You by Stephanie LaCava

July 22, 2024

Book Review, Criticism

book, literature, review, writing

I picked I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava, looking for a literary-fiction story with strong psychological undertones. What I got instead was “the next Great American Novel“, but let me be upfront: I mean this in the worst possible manner, using it entirely ironically.

Indeed, my motivation behind writing a review for this novel was very simple: I absolutely loathed it. This is the kind of pointless drivel you’d expect from 15-year-old edgelords thinking they’re writing avant-garde literature. I know, I used to be one.

Another fun fact: I almost gave up on the novel at the 90% mark, which would’ve been an amazing thing to do, but I sadly had to finish it since I’d decided to write this review.

Of course, that I hated I Fear My Pain Interests You is not very… interesting to you. But why I hated it might be, because it reveals a lot about how and why literature is written nowadays – in the US (see earlier note) and places copying the US.

i fear my pain interests you; image of woman screaming
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Review of The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

July 8, 2024

Book Review, Criticism

criticism, ending, literary fiction, narrative

I’ll say it right away: This review of The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, was inspired fully – believe it or not – by its… ending. Quite frankly, it’s so atrocious that it should be taught in literature classes as an example of what not to do.

But let’s take a step back.

It all began when, looking for something to read, I noticed this short novel and was encouraged by its blurb that promised an elliptical and ambiguous narrative (more of this in a moment) with clear literary-fiction vibes. I was far less encouraged by the fact that this book in particular and the author in general have received plenty of awards and praise. Quite frankly, I’m thoroughly suspicious of such things.

In any case, I thought to give it a shot, and the result was exceedingly peculiar, as you’ll discover in this review.

review of the sense of an ending, image of old man
Probably this is what the protagonist would look like: old, alone, bored and boring
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