[...] There is "plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope--but not for us!" This is a cosmic joke told by Franz Kafka, a wisecrack projected into a void. [...]
[...] when wars are fought, perfectly normal people fight them. Alongside the heroes and martyrs, sergeants and generals, there are the millions of average young people who simply tumble into it, their childhood barely behind them. Harvey was one those. A working-class lad from East Croydon at a lo…
[...] What if the "problem" is neither genetic nor psychological, but social? For what did "women trapped in a male body" do three hundred years ago? Maybe they expanded the social category of what it is to be male so that it was expansive enough to include the "female" traits they longed for.
[...] a story that in book form was an act of fury and lit a fire under the Thatcher-era kids who read it. Its message was not "Blow up the Houses of Parliament" or "Wear a white mask and knife people," for kids are not morons and understand what an allegory is. The message of V for Vendetta is "…
Lean's sad, buttoned-up account of unconsummated love is about all of us and our cautious natures. It's not that the English don't want true love or self-knowledge. Rather unlike our European cousins, we will not easily give up the real for the dream. We remain skeptical about throwing away a concr…
