“If you don’t allow yourself to write characters who do disagreeable things–if you only allow yourself to write about what you would be glad for your readers to imitate in real life–then you’re pretty much constrained to characters who help little old ladies across the street and rescue cats from trees,” points out Lionel Shriver, […]
“Words are the first step we take to turn intentions into reality”, declares American author Chuck Palahniuk. “All our vows, – he explains, – and declarations and signatures: Words. And ceremonies where we speak words (pledges and promises) in front of our peers. Again, that’s how human beings develop their dreams into a physical reality”. […]
“I think there’s a bit too much of a certain type of ‘acceptable’ person appearing in so-called literary novels written by people who only seem to know other people like themselves, who get published by people like themselves and reviewed by their pals”, responds Joolz Denby, performance poet, painter, and author of a number of […]
Dermot Bolger's latest book, The Family on Paradise Pier, changed title several times in the four and a half years it took him to write it. For a long time it was called The Former People. The term was used by Stalin to describe those who refused to take part in the Revolution, served no […]
Here, Ruthven begins by explaining the original context in which the term ‘fundamentalism’ was used, that of American Protestantism, and continues to analyze a number of religious movements around the world using the same frame of reference. He explains that Fundamentalism can initially be understood as “tradition made self-aware and consequently defensive”. In this argument, […]
Why should one be interested in the conditions at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay? Why should one care about the legal position of detainees in Guantánamo? After all, this camp was set up by the American Government to hold Al-Qaeda prisoners, members of an organisation that had precious little respect for the rules of war or […]
After months of hiatus, U.S.-Israel tension over China has returned. This time the dispute is over Israel’s desire to upgrade the Harpy assault drone that it had sold to China in the mid-1990s. The drones are capable of destroying radar stations and anti-aircraft batteries; the U.S. fears that they could upset the delicate strategic balance […]
The other day, while I was trumpeting my minor contribution to the most recent issue of Three Monkeys Online, I forget to mention some of the other stuff on the site worth taking a look at. In particular, the mag has somehow managed to wrangle interviews with both Peter Jackson and Naomi Watts, director and […]
The critics gave Kazuo Ishiguro a bit of a mauling over his latest novel, particularly in comparison with the garlands thrown at his fellow writing-course graduate (from the University of East Anglia) Ian McEwan. I happen to prefer Ishiguro’s book to Saturday–it’s far more imaginatively ambitious for starters. My review is available at the Three […]