Senseless Acts Of Literature

This is another way station on the way to other places. Herein you will find links to “literary” essays and reviews, to poetry and fiction I have written, and links to other salons on the web. Essays and reviews that are specific to the SF field will be found on my science fiction page. My essays page includes links to all of the general essays in this site, including the ones listed here.

See my reviews page for my book reviews. Some of the books actually exist.

What is the point of Literary Theory?
Ravens, Writing Desks, Cattle Chutes and Literary Theory
Toto and the Elgin Marbles
Deconstruction As a Hallmark Moment
Well Met In Philadelphia
Language and three headed cows
A Note on Aardvark Symbolism in Late Castilian Literature.
Why English teachers die young
Mixed Metaphors

See my fiction page for a list of my on-line fiction.

On the definition of definition
Writing the perfect review
The Fine Art Of Reviewing
A review of moggin’s post-modernism FAQ
Waiting for Godot in various modes
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
On the Road to Ventimiglia
Cassandra Forgetting
Have You Heard This One? (Steve Witham)
A Discussion on the Art of Writing
Spam, spam on the range
The Cookbook of Jean-Paul Sartre
Reflections On C.S. Lewis
Young Adult Fantasy
Tuatara
Two Adams, two Eves, and other thoughts
A Literary Conversation
Speaking for the book
Robert Heinlein – an appreciation
Only A Grumble
Accuracy and the Conventionality of Artifice
A Brief biography of “Calamity” Jane Austin
Rite Gud on the Internet
Noam Chomsky and Ayn Rand
Dungeons and Dragons
Today I Killed Grandfather
Good and Evil, Fascism and Hogwarts
Politics, Literature, and Harry Potter
Is it your poor child, my dear?
Who wants to be a history professor?
Notes on a passage by de Man
Fiction lies within the bookends of summer
On not being a lady
The Virgin of Snath
Good reviews for bad books
What happens in Room 101?
Relativistic Semiotics
The Calamity Jane Austin Hoax
Implications of a choice of phrasing
Elaborate lies, Leonard Cohen, and Petra
Petra
Nine fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom
The face upon the floor
Great literary taunts
Return to the Empire
Land tenure in the Empire
Metaphors Galore

Poetry — master page
Poetry — morning songs
Poetry — interlude
Poetry — evening songs
Poetry — wild flowers
Collected Sonnets
Zhandivar
The Raven King
The keeper of her soul
Reflections on Zhandivar
Lions and Zebras, Oh My
Notes on The Raven King
Notes on The keeper of her soul

• Classics at the Online Literature Library contains on line works of ~39 authors from Aesop to Voltaire.
• The home page of Lawrence Watt-Evans is the home page of one of my favorite authors.
• Jane Austen Info Page – the Republic of Pemberly is a communal website devoted to Jane Austen and discussions about Jane Austen.
• BookWire – starting point for book info searches I doubt that this is the best book search site but it works.
• Nevil Shute Home Page Nevil Shute is another of my favorite authors. I particularly liked Round the Bend – I suppose it shows.
• Gazette Of The Arts This is an E-zine dedicated to the arts. The home page bears the current date but it reads as though the last issue happened in 2007. Still it is amusing.
• How To Deconstruct Almost Anything
  “This is the story of one computer professional’s explorations in the world of postmodern literary criticism.” He did his best to decipher what the academics were doing when they were deconstructing. The results are interesting but perhaps not too well connected to what Derrida was doing.
• “But It Is Above All Not True”: Derrida, Relativity, and the “Science Wars”
  Plotnisky is working over the ill conceived sneers of scientists in the Sokal hoax discussions. His thesis would be correct if it weren’t buried under verbiage.
• Everything postmodern – postmodernism resources This is your gateway into the wondrous world of postmodernism, aka Academia meets Alice in Wonderland.
• The Dada Engine This is your classic word salad generator
• Joan of Arc: The world’s largest website dedicated to Joan of Arc containing her full history with a timeline, quick facts page, quotes page, many historic pictures, videos and the equivalent of thousands of pages of information related to Joan’s amazing life.

The diaries of Etienne Bonet were widely regarded as the quintessential exhibit of pre-modernist 19th century fiction. That the author of these purported diaries of a bizarre eccentric could not be determined was held to be part of their charm, that anonymity gave the works a timelessness and placelessness of time and place. The unfortunate discovery that the works were not fiction, that there was a tedious little man named Etienne Bonet, and that the diaries were merely diaries quite destroyed their literary value and they were hastily stricken from the canon.

– The Encyclopedia of Fictional Fiction