There are a lot of challenges in reading 17th-century literature; add to Paradise Regained a basic question as to what exactly is being read. Is this a stand-alone pocket epic or intended follow-up to another epic?
Yes to both is the best answer I can offer. Whether you read it for the history, the religion, or the craft itself, John Milton serves up a challenging, engaging, if unfulfilling treatment of New Testament themes, modelled on how he did the Old Testament in Paradise Lost.
Few genres are as evocatively articulated in a single prose passage as is detective-noir in the novel Farewell, My Lovely. Those few short paragraphs would prove yet more memorable when transported to film.
It happens all at once after some sudden if typical violence. Our protagonist, private eye Philip Marlowe, is getting the business from two heavies he thinks are cops, only they aren’t very law-abiding. After roughing him up and warning him away from a crook, they kick him out of their car in the middle of a deserted road.
The more I read about Lyndon Johnson, the more I see how much one can do if heedless of needs for self-reflection, sleep, or a real friend.
Even as Robert A. Caro offers up some admiration for the man who would become the 37th President of the United States, as Johnson aligns himself to causes Caro holds dear, the author does not try to sugarcoat the fact LBJ was first and last a deeply-unpleasant SOB.
