Full collection of four essays on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” comprising “Lord of the Rings: the anti-adventure,” “Reader’s Guide to the Fellowship of the Ring,” “Reader’s Guide to the Two Towers,” and “The (True) Lord of the Ring.” Emphasis throughout is to suggest that it is not just wise but essential to encounter very, very…[Read more]

Full collection of four essays on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” comprising “Lord of the Rings: the anti-adventure,” “Reader’s Guide to the Fellowship of the Ring,” “Reader’s Guide to the Two Towers,” and “The (True) Lord of the Ring.” Emphasis throughout is to suggest that it is not just wise but essential to encounter very, very…[Read more]

This essay serves as a guardian, as a true friend of the reader, encouraging them to recognize that if they identify with the hobbits in this book, to be wary of the text trains the reader to become someone who would mistake their actual proud moments of self-decision, self-realization… of bravery, of the genuine kind, for something evil or bad,…[Read more]

This essay serves as a guardian, as a true friend of the reader, encouraging them to recognize that if they identify with the hobbits in this book, to be wary of the text trains the reader to become someone who would mistake their actual proud moments of self-decision, self-realization… of bravery, of the genuine kind, for something evil or bad,…[Read more]

Argues that J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” is an adventure in reverse, an “argument” for “your” regression. Rather than play with your ability to maybe succeed in threatening environments, it confirms your worst suspicions about yourself, lending you in mood to cling to others in a master-slave relationship, so long as they’ll agree to…[Read more]

Delineates how much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring” is about preparing Frodo especially so that if caught out alone, he’d never dare venture a decent listen to anyone who might attempt to sway him to consider the due fate for the Ring, other than according to Gandalf’s specifications. Positions the text as one that bates the reader…[Read more]

Delineates how much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring” is about preparing Frodo especially so that if caught out alone, he’d never dare venture a decent listen to anyone who might attempt to sway him to consider the due fate for the Ring, other than according to Gandalf’s specifications. Positions the text as one that bates the reader…[Read more]

Explores Douglas Coupland’s “Generation X” as almost a Gen Xer’s “version of John Updike’s Couples”; that is, as, a place where, like Updike’s book, friends create a community isolated only to themselves. Though unlike Updike’s work, where — considering the time it was written in, the ’70s, where a generation succeeded in overtly contesting and…[Read more]

George Walker’s “The Good Fight” as arguing for means towards self-growth which aren’t merely acting out; which aren’t simply signs of perversity, of mental illness. Argues that rather than delineating the key differences between the downtrodden — those stepped on — and the rich — those (gleefully) doing the stomping down — it is truly more…[Read more]

Discusses Tennessee WIlliams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” in regards to Ann Douglas’s thesis of Americans appropriating the concept of terrible, truth-telling, phallicly-empowered “monsters” in order to lay low the influence of mothers whose influence over their children has stretched way outside the bounds of…[Read more]

Explores how Max Vigne, from Andrea Barrett’s “Servants of the Map,” makes use of the dangerous Himalayan mountain environment as almost as Winnicottian “play space,” in which to recover from being requited to a life of obligation, rather than real-self discovery, after his mother’s death.

Explores how Max Vigne, from Andrea Barrett’s “Servants of the Map,” makes use of the dangerous Himalayan mountain environment as almost as Winnicottian “play space,” in which to recover from being requited to a life of obligation, rather than real-self discovery, after his mother’s death.

Explores the invisible man, in Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man,” as borrowing upon associations of patriarchal maleness, in the sense Ann Douglas in her “Terrible Honesty” argues 20s modern’s did, to secure freedom from feelings of entrapment by maternal figures, whose near-proximity to him is expressed in the text as often incestuous, gross;…[Read more]

Explores the invisible man, in Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man,” as borrowing upon associations of patriarchal maleness, in the sense Ann Douglas in her “Terrible Honesty” argues 20s modern’s did, to secure freedom from feelings of entrapment by maternal figures, whose near-proximity to him is expressed in the text as often incestuous, gross;…[Read more]

Sinclair Ross’s “As For Me and My House” as a (nefarious) safe-space whereby readers can subsume themselves within a locale that promises the sense of being taken care of, that they experienced within the maternal home but on one condition: ready willingness to defer; acquiesce to “mother’s” leadership. Written just before a culture pivoted from…[Read more]