A Tale of Two Westerns

The harsh violence of Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove draw us in more than it repels, and the proximity of death makes the actions of its dramatis personae only more vivid and compelling to us.
The harsh violence of Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove draw us in more than it repels, and the proximity of death makes the actions of its dramatis personae only more vivid and compelling to us.
Without a doubt, irony plays a large part in the phenomenon of Porky. His mere existence in a fanciful form at a restaurant that specializes in pork meats is deliciously ironic.
We may be approaching a time when the illusion of selfhood is strengthened, not weakened, because we are surrounded by machines enacting it.
Can the works of the Mechanic Muse be put to genuinely human uses?
Mann understood, almost too well, the allure of tradition and irrationalism, of the poetic and the mystical.
Singing is not to be understood as an aesthetic sweetener.