M. John Harrison on Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Solar: For some readers it will return to McEwan a little of the credibility he seemed to be working so hard to lose with novels such as Saturday and On Chesil Beach; others may require more of him. I didn’t realize British literati think McEwan was jettisoning… Continue reading
Author: John Farrell
Writer and producer working in Boston.
Tom Bethell and the Romance of Scientific HeresyBack in November I linked to Stephen Barr’s post spanking American Spectator columnist Tom Bethell for his long held, ideological grudge against Einstein –and further, his irresponsibly uncritical championing of a pet theory devised by his friend and fellow traveler, the late Petr Beckmann–which Bethell has now summarized… Continue reading
Darwin and Teleology
Brandon Watson has an excellent post on Darwin and teleology: The most important is that the word ‘teleology’ is ambiguous, and was already ambiguous in Darwin’s time. By ‘teleology’ you can mean Paleyan teleology, in which organisms exhibit a design plan that is explained by the imposition of a designer in a special creation at… Continue reading Darwin and Teleology
Four Things Publishers Do Know–about the future of digital publishing. Most important (to me, as a writer who wants to sell books): Public literary discussion is dying. At least, if you read only print media. As newspaper book reviews get cut and boutique literary magazines struggle for survival on meagre Arts Council handouts, it has… Continue reading
How much worse are things going to get in Rome? Rod Dreher discusses. I can tell you something from my own reporting years ago. Benedict was in as much denial as anybody else in Rome, until 2002, when his fax machine at his Vatican office began disgorging round the clock reports from American dioceses detailing… Continue reading