A Savior for all Seasons
For many centuries people strived and died to embrace Him. Today, they often struggle as hard to quit Him. All the time, His image keeps popping up like that of some genial, persistent old boyfriend.
Just how does one see the world through the prism of Jesus Christ?
A Clockwork Orange is something that shouldn’t exist in nature but does: bracing social comment that also works as pure pulp fiction. Should man be free to choose; or if not, does he cease being a man? Never mind that, what about all that ultra-violence!
When reading A Clockwork Orange today, two other things jump out. One is the unique lingo of the narrative, the so-called “Nadsat” slang of our juvenile-delinquent protagonist, Alex. The other is it being made into an even more famous Stanley Kubrick film.
More on that later.
When it comes to the history of the American labor movement, the biggest question for many of us is not the interests of workers or what constitutes a fair wage. It’s what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
James Riddle Hoffa was no ideologue, but even before he became the most famous missing person in my lifetime he was the most notorious and consequential labor figure of his century. In The Teamsters, Steven Brill examines the union and its Hoffa imprint in the immediate aftermath of his 1975 disappearance.
Certainly you see Shakespeare reacting to the success of his first Henry IV play by giving audiences more of the same. More rebel plotting, more Prince Henry antagonizing the squares, and especially more hijinks from Sir John Falstaff, who proved a comic sensation in his debut.
There is a Shakespeare quote that springs to mind when reading Henry IV, Part I, but not from that play. Rather, it’s from As You Like It.
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts…”
In Henry IV, Part I, that man is Prince Henry, heir to the throne held by our title character. The Prince will play many parts in the course of his career, most notably two he develops in tandem here: a dissolute ruffian inspired by his friendship with the disgraced Sir John Falstaff; and a bold knight modeled on Hotspur, who leads an army against his father.
