by Richard Subber | May 10, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Joys of reading, Politics, Power and inequality
seemingly unavoidable…
Book review:
The Demon of Unrest
by Erik Larson (b1954)
New York: Crown Publishing Group, div. of Penguin Random House, 2024
565 pages
You’ll recognize the casually engaging prose and the dedicated storytelling style of Erik Larson. It’s a pleasure to read everything he writes.
Larson digs deep to explore the nature of the “demon of unrest” that made trouble for decades and wouldn’t stop provoking the evil sentiments and the violent politics that preceded the historic outbreak of the American Civil War in the Charleston harbor in April 1861.
The Demon of Unrest names and spotlights all the characters who played mostly behind-the-scenes roles as Lincoln and Davis and Beauregard and Scott and Seward and Ruffin and their well-known colleagues blustered and schemed and waited and welcomed and feared the seemingly unavoidable war to end slavery.
No matter how much you know, you’ll learn something more about the assault on Ft. Sumter by reading this book.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | May 8, 2025 | Joys of reading, Language, Tidbits
ink stains on the philosopher’s stone…
“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold;
they change the world into words.”
William H. Gass (1924-2017)
American novelist, philosopher
Gass had his way with words. If you’re a serious reader, check him out.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | May 6, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
in my dreams…
before waking…
In this dream, again,
I will climb to high meadows
to invite another trace of you,
to feel a zephyr
that has filled your hair,
to see again your deep smile
as you climb the slope
to show me
how happiness arrives,
to bring a kiss
that fills me
with sweet longing
for your arms
that hold me,
in this dream that fills our sky.
May 23, 2023
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
The tiny sound of the surf…
…listen for the sea…”Listen,” my poem
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | May 4, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
meditative, that’s evil for you…
Movie review:
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Among more than 30 film adaptions of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a 1945 release (not rated, 110 minutes) starring Hurd Hatfield as Dorian Gray is generally acclaimed as the best. It got four Oscar nominations. Different viewers will have different opinions. It’s not my favorite.
Just indulge the fantasy element: a painted portrait ages grotesquely while its subject, Dorian Gray, lives an unimaginably dissolute life and never looks older than a handsome 20-year-old. Gray’s impulse to sell his soul for eternal youth was an offer The Evil One couldn’t refuse.
The 1945 B&W version superficially treats Gray’s moral struggles and capitulation which are so vividly probed in the book. A young Angela Lansbury was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her rather placid role as Sybil Vane, Gray’s first victim. The actors talk too fast.
I like the 1973 version (rated TV-14, 111 minutes) starring Shane Briant as Dorian. The pace is natural, the cinematography is well staged in color, and the script obviously reflects the often meditative tone of the novel. Briant is a credible Dorian. The women in this production are rather conventionally feminine and they tend to be a part of the scenery.
A 2009 film titled Dorian Gray (rated R, 112 minutes, Ben Barnes as Dorian) gets this classic story mostly wrong. This is a Hollywood-ized version, with too much action, too much graphic sexuality, and too much violence. Wilde’s philosophical ruminations on good and evil get lost. Colin Firth as Dorian’s amoral mentor, Lord Henry Wotton, is a quite believably demonic tempter and a cad.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
“Tear it up,” says Kurt Vonnegut
“Write a six line poem, about anything…
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Empyrean: new poems with 57 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | May 1, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry
The Book of Days
The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.
There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”
It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.
away
A dirty pancake cloud
slides across
the base of the vault,
the rest of the sky is void,
a void is the best of the sky,
these dawns are easy to forget.
October 16, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Lafayette by Harlow Unger
He was a great man. Also rich and lucky.
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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