A Portrait of the Absurdist as a Young Man

The Stranger fails to illuminate Camus’ courageous philosophy.

Leave Them Kids Alone!

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a crowded masterpiece.

The Assault on Meaning

George Orwell’s prophetic vision in 1984.

Further than Far

The emotional geography of As I Lay Dying.

Bye Bye, Beetle

Kafka’s meditation on the limits of empathy.

A Crisis of Conscience

On The Brothers Karamazov and the many forms of guilt.

Knowing When to Hold ‘Em

The Catcher in the Rye is a postlapsarian search for connection.

Legends of the Fall (and Winter)

Independent People’s grimly comic look at Iceland’s antiheroes.