The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities |
Books that have been sent to us
within the last fortnight or so, including:
Honey, Mud, and Maggots,
Wings in the Snow, WWI, and
Kenneth W. Starr: in his own write.
REVIEWS
Journeys into Microspace
GREAT REVIEWERS OF THE PAST: H. L. MENCKEN
Where Salmon Come To Die
Lady Chatterley's Lover
BRIEF REVIEWS
THE WEEKLY RALPH
ARTICLES
Letter from Uppland #2
READINGS
Secret Government Report
POETRY
Let Us Then You and I Go Now And Return to The Vale of Tears
LETTERS:
SUBSCRIBE
ARCHIVES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Westward Ha! Eastward Ha!
"The whole business began sixteen years ago,
as so many complex ventures, with an unfavorable
astrological conjunction --- Virgo being in the house of Alcohol."
"There's the wheatfield that turns into the lining of an artery,
a bowl-full of breakfast cereal that is, in reality, a goldenrod leaf,
and a big stack of automobile tires that is a spill of coccoliths."
The Greeks
"The plain facts are that Greek science,
even at its best, would be hard to distinguish
from the science prevailing among Hottentots, Haitians
and Mississippi Baptists today..."
"Classified as Natural History,
the book could just as well be called
a coming-of-age story."
"The book has some generally useful descriptions of wildlife,
botany, and hunting practices at a typical Edwardian English estate,
but the noisome activities of a certain gamekeeper and
the lady of the house keep getting in the way
of these otherwise excellent passages."
Eastern Metaphysics, T'ai Chi, Ebola,
Body and Mind, Mexico, and very bad poetry
"Ten kids with ten cameras, strolling everywhere,
taking pictures of their families, and the local drunks,
and the local iglesia, and the dogs, and the gangs,
and the graffiti-filled walls, and the street clowns."
The Jewel is in the Forehead of the Toad
"We send him the original Letter Home ---
writings from the Sargasso Sea of the Soul,
the Hebrides of the Heart,
the Celebes of the psyche."
"The Swedes have also dropped the ball
on another, characteristic
American-style project:
the endless construction/deconstruction of sports
stadia."
Boy Meets Gull
"Hirschfeld, with the stolidity of the true peasant,
outdid himself in gluttony.
Bread by the bushel basket, whole beeves, firkins of butter,
and hogsheads of jam vanished down his maw"
"In short, the proposed operation
will bring necessary government funds
into the city, erase persistent hard-core unemployment,
give a whole community new self-respect"
Hurricane Fred
"Well we battened down the hatches
And sure enough they came millions of them
Moving in off the freeway
Eating doorknobs and drinking fuel
Wanting only to be loved..."
"I finally figured out this dying stuff
And thought I'd better tell you before it's too late.
The way it happens is this: we are allowed
To vacate the premises at our leisure..."
On Anorexia and
On Old Age
"It's because of people like you
that sufferers are sometimes ashamed
to tell their stories..."
"Over the past few months ---
since turning seventy ---
I've been having this strange dream..."
Help perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
Subscribe, and get a print-out of some of our most pithy
along with a copy of one of the newest titles from
Mho & Mho Works.
This will lead you back through previous issues of RALPH
(at least as far back as Winter, 1994 - 1995.)
Titles, authors, and publishers
of all books reviewed in RALPH ---
arranged chronologically.
1995 1996 1997 1998
Submitting Books
The best way to get books to RALPH for review.
Submitting Reviews
Suggestions for would-be reviewers --- and payment schedule.
History
RALPH didn't spring full-blown from the brows of the gods:
We've been around (in different guises) for over twenty-five years.
The Fessenden Fund
Other activities of RALPH's godparents, including
Mho
&
Mho Works
Ralph R. Doister,Editor-In-Chief
Post Office Box 16719
San Diego CA 92176
poo@cts.com
THE OFFICIAL RALPH
PARADOX-OF-THE-MONTH