Author: Jay Ruud
Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed” (parts V and VI)
P.G. Wodehouse’s “The Code of the Woosters”
Sir Pelham Grenville (P.G.) Wodehouse was one of the most prolific (and consistently funny) writers in British history. From his first “school story” novel The Pothunters (1902) to his posthumously published final completed novel Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (1974), Wodehouse published a total of 71 novels and 24 collections of short stories—95 fiction books in all. That’s a staggering number in… Continue reading P.G. Wodehouse’s “The Code of the Woosters”
Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning”
Robert Francis’s “Pitcher”
Andy Roberts’ “Oxblood”
Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway”
Virginia Woolf’s fourth novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is one of the uncontested classics of modern literature, and stands at the beginning of a dozen years of significant creativity and brilliant experimentation in the novel form explored here and in Woolf’s subsequent novels To The Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), The Waves (1931) and The Years (1937). Each of these latter novels has its proponents, and no… Continue reading Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway”
Jonathan Swift’s “The Day of Judgement”
Billy Collins’ “Study in Orange and White”
T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King”
Probably the most popular twentieth century treatment of the King Arthur story, and the one that does least to eviscerate the traditional Arthurian legend, is T.H. White’s four-part novel The Once and Future King, published as a complete compilation in 1958 after its original parts (The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made… Continue reading T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King”