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Digested Read: Albert O. Hirschmann's The Passions and the Interests—Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph

Digested Read: Albert O. Hirschmann’s The Passions and the Interests—Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph

Note: T his is a “Midrash”, gloss, or “digested read” of Albert O. Hirschmann’s book, The Passions and the Interests. It is decidedly not a critical analysis or a review of his work. As such it presents the author’s arguments as he makes them, and does not attempt an evaluation. It is presented here in the spirit of an apprentice student attempting to come to terms with the work of the master,…

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She Sang to Them, She Sang—a novel by W.D. Clarke—out now!

My second novel, She Sang to Them She Sang, is now available direct from corona\samizdat, an innovative small press based in Slovenia, and which focuses on publishing exploratory fiction from the present as well as on re-publishing neglected but essential avant-garde novels from the past. Small presses lose whatever slim margins they have to the likes of Amazon and Shopify, so these are being…

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She Sang to Them, She Sang, a novel by W.D. Clarke

My second novel, She Sang to Them She Sang, is forthcoming from corona\samizdat, an innovative small press based in Slovenia, and which focuses on publishing exploratory fiction from the present as well as on re-publishing neglected but essential avant-garde novels from the past. Those wishing to read the novel in advance of publication can find it on Netgalley, Booksirens, and Booksprout, or…

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Guest Poem—A Short History of the Bourgeoisie, by Hans Magnus Enzenburger (1990) Translated by Alasdair King, Source: in the TLS

Gabriel Josipovici's What Ever Happened to Modernism: an Appreciation

Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened to Modernism: an Appreciation

I have written a fairly long “Appreciation” of Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened To Modernism over on my LongReads page: <a href=”https://longform.wdclarke.org/gabriel-josipovicis-what-ever-happened-to-modernism-an-appreciation/”>check it out by following this link</a>

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Gabriel Josipovici's What Ever Happened to Modernism? —an Appreciation

Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened to Modernism? —an Appreciation

Note: this is neither a review (critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses) of the author’s book nor one of my “Digested Reads” (in which I attempt to give both myself and the reader as complete an experience of the author’s arguments as I can manage in as short a space as possible), but an “Appreciation”— as in a quotation-heavy, somewhat-lengthy rumination on some of the author’s key…

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Digested Read: Testaments Betrayed by Milan Kundera (2 of 9)

PART TWO The Castrating Shadow of Saint Garta

My previous post, digesting the first part of Kundera’s Testaments Betrayed, was concerned with how crucial ambiguity and the suspension of moral judgement are to the continued relevance of the novel. In this, humour played a key role, of course. You can read that post here. This post is centred upon Franz Kafka’s contributions to the ongoing…

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Digested Read: Testaments Betrayed by Milan Kundera (1 of 9)

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “digested read”, and I’d like to do it with those essays of Milan Kundera in 2020 that I’ve only read superficially in the past: doing so really helps me think my way through an author’s own thought processes, and it may turn you on to reading his books for yourself (I have done it before for Kundera’s earlier book, The Art of the Novel). So here is the first…

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#Kundera

November Sings

The first part of my three-part poem “November Sings” is up on the website The Chained Muse:

https://www.thechainedmuse.com/single-post/2019/08/20/November-Sings-in-Minor-Chords

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Interview With Jeff Bursey Novelist and critic Jeff Bursey's debut work of fiction, Verbatim, was re-issued in paperback some months ago by Verbivoracious Press.

Talking To My Daughter About The Economy, by Yanis Varoufakis (Review)

When I was in my final year of high school (back in the Pleistocene era, when Ontario still had “Grade 13”), I was fortunate to take two courses from the same teacher, a Mr. McCabe—fortunate in a number of ways, although I am only going deal with those relating to the subject matter that Mr. McCabe taught here. I had chosen to take Introductory Economics with him, and was also under obligation by…

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Digested Read: Talking With My Daughter About The Economy by Yanis Varoufakis

This is a “Midrash” or “digested read” of Varoufakis’s book, not a critical analysis or a review. As such it presents the author’s arguments as he makes them, and does not attempt an evaluation. I do provide review the book over on my blog, however.

1 Why So Much Inequality?

The book begins with a simple, childish question, one that any daughter could ask of her father: why is there so much…

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#Midrash

The Reactionary Mind by Cory Robin (Review)

In the new edition of 2011’s The Reactionary Mind, Cory Robin updates what is sure to become a classic in the history of political thought.

As I write this the populist, Trump-lite and thuggish, Boss-Hogg lookalike Premier of Ontario has invoked what is called the “Notwithstanding Clause” to overturn a judge’s overturning of a bit of legislationthat sought to reduce the number of elected…

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#Book Review #Capitalism #political economy

MacTrump Act IV, Scene 3

To The Tune of "Edelweiss"

The Blind Spot : Javier Cercas [Book Review]

While it is a truism that every artist constructs the aesthetic by which he or she wishes to be judged, I never tire of reading books like Cercas’s The Blind Spot, as these kinds of apologia pro [scribo] vitae sua(don’t ask me if I conjugated that correctly!) give what I would like to think of (however erroneously) as real insight into what practicing writers think of the phrase (one either…

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Another Lost Bergman Film

…In which the successful, independent heroine returns, book-worm young daughter in tow and for the first time in a decade or so after living for years in the city, to the provincial village of her youth, on account of a minor automobile accident on the highway not far from town.

Involuntarily towed to the nearest local garage, she is forced to wait for several days for parts to be delivered from…

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