Month: May 2021

Guided by Feeling, Not Feelings

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Book Reviews / Reflections

I recently finished George Saunders’ latest book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In it, he takes seven short stories by famous Russian authors and talks about what works in them—what’s going on at a deeper level than a cursory read might reveal and why he can’t stop reading them himself. He intersperses this with discussions of his realizations as a human being and a writer. I loved it, but it’s taken me […]

Endings That I Love

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Course Ideas / Reflections

The endings I love most are the ones where appearance is turned inside out by the fall of this one little domino—think Sixth Sense, or Interstellar, or another personal favorite, The Thomas Crown Affair. (Or what actually set me off on this post, which was the final episode of the Showtime series Homeland.) When that last piece falls, the meaning of everything that came before it is transformed. I particularly like when this reveals an […]