BOOK AND PODCAST REVIEWS - FICTION

The Supernatural and English Fiction (1995) Glen Cavaliero Cavaliero's book is an occasionally academic and dry but very useful review of what he chooses to define variously as the supernatural, the paranormal and the preternatural in English fiction. Like the donnish figure that he is, he implicitly privileges the supernatural as the numinous in literature over the attempts (as he seems to see it) of those who want to give you a good jolt or who see magic as just undiscovered science - but it has to be said that his own use of language is hardly inspiring when he moves beyond his judgements on particular authors to a consideration of theory. This is what they might call a solid performance. There is serious value to be gained from it - if only the introduction of new names to the non-specialist in literary studies. He has made me want to read Charles Williams. He brings out of the closet a number of women authors like Phyllis Paul who have been long and probably (on hi...

** spoiler alert ** No Country for Old Men is a great book at two levels - style and content. You have to engage with the laconic vernacular of the US Southwestern border country and observe how McCarthy uses it to show how a few words in the right context can get you far deeper into the emotions (or lack of them) of the main protagonists than any long-winded description of feelings. In forty years McCarthy has honed his art far from the excessive literariness of The Orchard Keeper to create a linguistic realism that is great literature. He manages the rare feat of showing how a basic decency, a sentimental decency, triumphs morally over cunning and intellect. He reminds us that 'sentiment', that is feeling one's values as givens without too much analysis, is not to be despised by those whose default mode is knowing irony. There is nothing post-modern about this book. As for the content, this is a deeply political book, without once mentioning politics as most re...