Literature – Excerpted

“The plague novel is the place where all human beings abandon all other human beings”

6 April 2020 Drew KaplanBooks

The structure of the modern plague novel, all the way to Stephen King’s “The Stand” and beyond, is a series of variations on “A Journal of the Plague Year” (a story set within the walls[…]

“the existence of books, no matter how grim the tale, is itself a sign, evidence that humanity endures, in the very contagion of reading”

6 April 2020 Drew KaplanBooks

In the long centuries during which the plague ravaged Europe, the quarantined, if they were lucky enough to have books, read them. If not, and if they were well enough, they told stories. In Giovanni[…]

“Britain’s pagan religions and the stories that form their liturgy never really disappeared…”

10 April 20164 April 2016 Drew KaplanLiterature

Britain’s pagan religions and the stories that form their liturgy never really disappeared, the literature professor Meg Bateman told me in an interview on the Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands. Pagan Britain, Scotland[…]

“Maybe a world not fixated on atonement and moral imperatives is more conducive to a rousing tale”

28 February 201622 February 2016 Drew KaplanLiterature

In Scotland, Bateman, in turn, suggests the difference between the countries may be that Americans “lack the kind of ironic humor needed for questioning the reliability of reality”—very different from the wry, self-deprecating humor of[…]

“Landscape matters: Britain’s antique countryside…lends itself to fairy-tale invention. … America’s mighty vistas, by contrast, are less cozy, less human-scaled, and less haunted”

21 February 201615 February 2016 Drew KaplanLiterature

Landscape matters: Britain’s antique countryside, strewn with moldering castles and cozy farms, lends itself to fairy-tale invention. As Tatar puts it, the British are tuned in to the charm of their pastoral fields: “Think about[…]

“Popular storytelling in the New World instead tended to celebrate in words and song the larger-than-life exploits of ordinary men and women”

12 February 20164 February 2016 Drew KaplanAmerica

Popular storytelling in the New World instead tended to celebrate in words and song the larger-than-life exploits of ordinary men and women: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Calamity Jane, even a mule named Sal on the[…]

“American fantasies differ in another way: They usually end with a moral lesson learned…”

29 January 201625 January 2016 Drew KaplanLiterature

…the British have always been in touch with their pagan folklore, says Maria Tatar, a Harvard professor of children’s literature and folklore. After all, the country’s very origin story is about a young king tutored[…]

“If British children gathered in the glow of the kitchen hearth to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening to tales larded with moral messages…”

22 January 201619 January 2016 Drew KaplanAmerica

If Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn were each to represent British versus American children’s literature, a curious dynamic would emerge: In a literary duel for the hearts and minds of children, one is a wizard-in-training[…]

Excerpted

Excerpts of Interest

Tag: Literature

“The plague novel is the place where all human beings abandon all other human beings”

“the existence of books, no matter how grim the tale, is itself a sign, evidence that humanity endures, in the very contagion of reading”

“Britain’s pagan religions and the stories that form their liturgy never really disappeared…”

“Maybe a world not fixated on atonement and moral imperatives is more conducive to a rousing tale”

“Landscape matters: Britain’s antique countryside…lends itself to fairy-tale invention. … America’s mighty vistas, by contrast, are less cozy, less human-scaled, and less haunted”

“Popular storytelling in the New World instead tended to celebrate in words and song the larger-than-life exploits of ordinary men and women”

“American fantasies differ in another way: They usually end with a moral lesson learned…”

“If British children gathered in the glow of the kitchen hearth to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening to tales larded with moral messages…”