news, views & reviews
Reviewed by Christine J. Murray
As one begins to read Woman of the Pharisees, one might think there is no possibility of redemption for the title character. When the novel by Francois Mauriac first hit France during World War II, one might have thought there would be no possibility of the world […]
Posted in Classics, Historical, Horror on Feb 9th, 2006
Reviewed by Christine J. Murray
Few people, even among Catholics, have heard of Robert Hugh Benson. That was not the case 100 years ago. As an author and novelist, the Catholic priest from Britain was incredibly popular. The reading public and the Catholic Church suffered greatly when he died in 1914. Benson was […]
Posted in Literary Biography on Feb 9th, 2006
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004) reviewed by Debra Murphy
A funny thing happened between the time I graduated from the University of Illinois in 1976, when I first heard the word “Semiotics” (but hadn’t a clue what it meant), and the early nineties, when I began researching Shakespeare lit […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 9th, 2006
“Reviewed by Rachel Murphy
“Mine is a parish like all the rest.”
This novel, small and unassuming, catches one off-guard: the perceptive country Curé, in the opening pages of his diary, speaks of the “stale discouragement” of his small parish; of loneliness; of parishioners who are “bored stiff”; of a “cancerous growth.” […]