Books
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
by Naomi Wolf Review by Dan Geddes The Bush Administration has polarized the American people as few presidencies before. Even while President Bush himself suffered from low approval ratings, the realization that his administration has relentlessly attac... More »
Tyrannicide: The Story of the Second American Revolution (A Novel)
by Evan Keliher Review by Dan Geddes Editor’s note: The Satirist does not endorse tyrannicide in any way. This is just a book review! The novel Tyrannicide: The Story of the Second American Revolution hilariously depicts a viable rebellion in mode... More »
Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow: The V-2 Rocket Cartel as Multinational Corporate Conspiracy
Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon Essay by Dan Geddes 7 July 2006 Contents Introduction Part 1 – Beyond the Zero Part 2 – Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering Part 3. In the Zone Part 4 – The Counterforce Anarchy Over Monopoly Conclusion Further reading... More »
An Accidental Family – Dostoevsky’s “Fathers and Sons”
An Accidental Family – Fyodor Dostoevsky Review By Dan Geddes 10 October 2004 Dostoevsky’s An Accidental Family is probably the least known of his long novels. It is a first-person narrative, presented as the private “notes” of a twenty-year old ba... More »
Pynchon’s Vineland: The War on Drugs and the Coming Police-State
Review by Dan Geddes Vineland (1990) Thomas Pynchon See also: The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge and Dys, an imaginary Pynchon novel Contents Infiltrating the Resistance Movement The Repression: America as Garrison Stat... More »
Distorted Communication in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49
Review By Dan Geddes See also: Gravity’s Rainbow, Vineland, Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge and Dys, an imaginary Pynchon novel ___________________ The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon’s second novel, pursues many of the same themes Pynchon explored in hi... More »
Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature Richard Rorty Review By Dan Geddes The chief target of Rorty’s work is the notion that epistemology is the arbiter of what is rational in Western cultures. He sees this as an outgrowth of Descartes̵... More »
The Sorrow of American Sports – A Prayer for Owen Meany
See also: A Son of the Circus, A Widow for One Year The Fourth Hand and an imaginary review of Irving’s The Third Leg. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving Review By Dan Geddes John Irving’s A Prayer For Owen Meany is yet another Irving book that abs... More »
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare – Henry Miller’s “On the Road”
Henry Miller Review By Dan Geddes See also review of Miller’s The Rosy Crucifixion Henry Miller is famous for leaving New York for Paris in 1930, and writing sexually-explicitly literary novels that were banned in the United States for over thirty years.... More »
The Corrections
The Corrections Jonathan Franzen Review by Dan Geddes See also review of Franzen’s Freedom The Corrections admirably portrays the values of both contemporary American yuppies and their square parents. While the three main characters are well-spoken East ... More »
Winesburg, Ohio – Novel or Stories?
Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson Review By Dan Geddes Winesburg’s Reception I can understand why Winesburg, Ohio was shocking for its time: the veneer of Victorian innocence in small town American life is pierced, revealing tormented psyches even among ... More »