I recently watched Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, performed by the Metropolitan Opera Company. Based on Goethe’s play (Part I), Faust is a crotchety old scholar in search of life’s meaning. He longs for a transcendental moment, a knowledge beyond what the mind can grasp. Enter Mephistopheles, the Devil, who seizes on Faust’s despair and […]
This essay appeared in the Vineyard Gazette, July 6, 2017 On April 22, more than a million citizens marched in 600 cities across the United States and abroad in support of science — an impressive turnout. But if we are to defend the role of science in public policy, we must do more than march […]
Nayantara Sahgal has written another gem of a book. The author has captured the horror of our times in a story where ordinary people become victims of nationalist fervor. I only wish she had spent more time in the heads of the main characters as they undergo and are forced to live with the aftermath […]
I am in total agreement with the Ron Charles’ review (Washington Post). Sometimes I wonder if Rushdie isn’t terribly insecure, since he seems to be on an eternal quest to impress his readers with his wit. He seems to be too clever by half. Unfortunately, this cleverness comes at the expense of emotional substance. I […]
Rereading The Time Machine was not only a pleasure, but haunting and prescient. Written more than a hundred years ago, the Time Traveler finds himself in a future world where the workers (Morlocks) and upper-class citizens of leisure (the Eloi) have virtually no contact. It is our world in the extreme, where the gulf between […]
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3420639082?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1 “Rhythms of Life” and “Wives of the God King” (another book by the same author, also available on Goodreads) are the two foremost scholarly books on India’s devadasis, generally translated as temple dancers, although their job description is much deeper and more complex than that moniker conveys. Professor Marglin’s credentials are impeccable; she holds […]