Despite my admiration for his style and wit, even I can admit that many of Wes Anderson’s films have rough edges. Sheer narrative drops trip you into ridges in the mind of the filmmaker that sometimes feels too personal, while jarring stalagmites can obstruct your understanding of the presence and truth of the story. Anderson Read More
Rebecca Miller’s latest novel would be as well titled Jacob’s Feast as Jacob’s Folly; so voracious is the author’s appetite for detail and the narrator’s lust for experience. Born into a poor family of Jewish peddlers in eighteenth century Paris, Jacob Cerf breathes his last while contemplating the pooling rivulets of wax on an ornate, Read More
Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, a novella about an early 20th-century logger and bridge builder in the northwestern United States, has garnered rave reviews from publications such as The Scotsman, The Observer, and The New York Times. Its straightforward, even stilted, prose imitates the hapless career of the orphaned Robert Granier. Robert grows up north of Read More
Bhalla Strand is a structurally complex novel, set across two different historical periods (1910 and 2010), utilising a number of different narrative voices and elaborating on several themes. At its heart, however, is a relatively simple romantic tale – or rather, two tales, linked by a fictional Scottish island which in itself forms one of Read More
21 Revolutions was commissioned to mark the first two decades of Glasgow Women’s Library. It features the work of 21 visual artists and 21 writers, each inspired by items from the Library’s rich collection of artefacts, books and art. Despite its size (and price!), it’s no mere coffee-table bagatelle. On the contrary, 21 Revolutions Read More
In 1814 Pierre-Simon Laplace wrote the first published statement of what is known as causal determinism. This is the idea, in general terms, that every event is necessarily caused by previous events and conditions in accordance with established laws. Though this deterministic view has its precedents in Ancient Greek philosophy, Laplace’s formulation places it in Read More
You can tell much about a city by its attitudes to the arts. Or perhaps it’s the art that alerts us to the victories and vicissitudes of a city. Even a brief list of Dundee’s leet of literati would include a high number of leading poets, such as W. N. Herbert (one of the editors Read More
I feel bad giving a movie a negative review, especially when it contains an amazing cast. When I heard that Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, George Clooney (also director, producer and co-writer) Jean Durjardin and John Goodman had all come together to star in The Monuments Men, I was excited to say the least. The strength Read More
An edited transcript… JS: Bill Herbert, thank you for agreeing to this interview for Dundee University Review of the Arts and congratulations on being appointed Dundee’s Makar. So, it’s obvious what my opening query’s going to be – what does this mean, that you’re going to be Dundee’s Makar? What are you going to have Read More
Supposedly, reference humour is the laziest kind of humour there is. However, that is not always the case if one combines references and humour, as Jenner does in Two for Joy. Use of the former are perhaps the most characteristic trait of his poetry. Indeed, one might easily accuse him of overdoing it. “Titov Dying”, Read More