Tag Archives: RKS literature

RKS British Literature: A Mad Lust Not to be Killed (John Fowles)

Desolation. Rubble, fragments of plastered wall, broken rafters, the yellow splashes of lyddite everywhere, The drizzle that had started again gleaming on the stones. On the skin of corpses. Many Germans had been caught in the houses. In ten minutes I saw a summary of the whole butcher’s shop of war. The blood, the gapingContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A Mad Lust Not to be Killed (John Fowles)”

RKS British Literature: A Third-Class Degree and a First-Class Illusion (John Fowles)

I acquired expensive habits and affected manners. I got a third-class degree and a first-class illusion: that I was a poet. But nothing could have been less poetic than my seeing-through-all boredom with life in general and with making a living in general. I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failureContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A Third-Class Degree and a First-Class Illusion (John Fowles)”

RKS British Literature: Men Who Are Not Quite Up to Their Job (John Fowles)

Like all men not really up to their job, he was a stickler for externals and petty quotidian things; and in lieu of an intellect he had accumulated an armoury of capitalized key-words like Discipline and Tradition and Responsibility. If I ever dared – I seldom did – to argue with him he would produceContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Men Who Are Not Quite Up to Their Job (John Fowles)”

RKS British Literature: The Brigadier and His Dutiful Wife (John Fowles)

I had long before made the discovery that I lacked the parents and ancestors I needed. My father was, through being the right age at the right time rather than through any great professional talent, a brigadier; and my mother was the very model of a would-be major-general’s wife. That is, she never argued withContinue reading “RKS British Literature: The Brigadier and His Dutiful Wife (John Fowles)”

RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: Insult Islam: You Die (Orhan Pamuk)

There was, for example, the poet Nurettin, who admired all things European but took little interest in politics until the day a radical Islamist news paper unearthed something he’d written years earlier-an essay on art and religion-and distorted it to charge that he’d insulted our faith”; afraid of looking frightened, Nurettin dusted off his oldContinue reading “RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: Insult Islam: You Die (Orhan Pamuk)”

RKS American Literature: Wait for the End of Segregation? (Martin Luther King Jr.)

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those whoContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Wait for the End of Segregation? (Martin Luther King Jr.)”

RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: Turkish “Religious School” Students Wouldn’t Hesitate to Chop You to Pieces for “Offending” Islam (Orhan Pamuk)

“Those religious high school boys you saw in the cells today have your face permanently etched in their memories. They’ll throw bombs at anyone and anything; they don’t care as long as they are heard. No one who’s even slightly westernized can breathe free in this country unless they have a secular army protecting them,Continue reading “RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: Turkish “Religious School” Students Wouldn’t Hesitate to Chop You to Pieces for “Offending” Islam (Orhan Pamuk)”

RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: Turkish “Religious School” Students Berate Europe (Orhan Pamuk)

But now, no one could hear anything above the booing and catcalls and angry whistles from the religious school boys. Despite the guilty, fearful silence at the front of the auditorium, few could hear what Funda Eser was saying that when the angry girl tore the scarf off her head, she was not just makingContinue reading “RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: Turkish “Religious School” Students Berate Europe (Orhan Pamuk)”

RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: The One by One Islamist Clean Up in Turkey (Orhan Pamuk)

The Islamists have embarked in a clean up operation. They’re taking care of us one by one. If you want to save your skin. I would advise you to increase your faith in God at the earliest opportunity. It won’t be long. I fear, before a moderate belief in God will be insufficient to saveContinue reading “RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: The One by One Islamist Clean Up in Turkey (Orhan Pamuk)”

RKS Literature: Easy American Victims: Inept and Unflappable Delhi Pickpocket (Salman Rushdie)

India can be a tough country for Americans, who are seen as walking dollar signs and, what as innocents abroad: legitimate targets, easy meat. Within hours of checking in at their five-star South Delhi hotel, they had been importuned, without ,leaving the grounds, by money changers offering them the best black rate in town forContinue reading “RKS Literature: Easy American Victims: Inept and Unflappable Delhi Pickpocket (Salman Rushdie)”