In a comment on the art of reviewing and interpreting literary works, the English writer G.K. Chesterton wryly notes that “either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.” According to Chesterton, criticism either repeats something already said in the literary work, or reads something into the work that the writer never intended. In either case, the usefulness of critici

Nothing Gold Can StayBy Ron Rash (Ecco)When a prisoner on a chain gang is sent to the nearest farmhouse to fetch water in the backwoods of North Carolina, author Ron Rash sets the scene for a sterling collection of short stories in “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” They span a range of years and an even wider range of emotions.Rash’s 14 stories are broken into three sections and set in a variety of eras and places. He introduces a would-be hippie in the 1960s; college-bound sweethearts of today and their

July 1914: Countdown to WarBy Sean McMeekin (Basic Books)A Sarajevo chauffeur took a wrong turn, and Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip had his chance to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. In the resulting inferno of World War I, 9 million others died.The conventional wisdom of the last 100 years holds that Germany’s desire for empire and cultural hegemony turned Princip’s deed into an excuse for war. Barbara Tuchman’s famed history, “The Guns of August,” makes the most of this cas

What would it be like to dance on the moon? There, things weigh six times less than they do on Earth. Imagine how far you could go with every jump and leap ― and how light your body would feel. The latest volume of Azalea, an American, English-language journal featuring Korean literature and culture published by Harvard University’s Korea Institute, features contemporary Korean author Bae Myung-hoon’s (“Tower” “Concealing”) science fiction “Art and the Acceleration of Gravity” ― a story of a Seo

CAPE TOWN (AFP) ― Peace icon Desmond Tutu checked into a South African hospital on Wednesday for tests related to an ongoing infection, his foundation said.“Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has checked into a Cape Town hospital for the treatment of a persistent infection and to undergo tests to discover the underlying cause,” the foundation said in a statement.The treatment did not include any surgery, it said.A photograph of the 81-year-old Nobel Laureate showed him smiling at his office where

South Korean and U.S. naval bands will stage joint concerts in Seoul and Busan on Friday and Sunday, respectively, to mark the 60th anniversary of the armistice agreement and their alliance.U.S. seamen belonging to the Seventh Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan, came here earlier this week for the concerts, which will be held at the KBS Hall in Yeouido, western Seoul, at 7:30 p.m. and at BEXCO in southern Busan at 3 p.m.The concerts will feature a series of Korean and U.S. pop songs such as Psy’s “

Tourism official encourages Koreans to discover unexplored destinations, such as Davao

The annual dining festival introducing high-quality meals at reasonable prices returns with a temple food theme, hosting a gala dinner featuring Korean temple food and an art exhibition featuring the culture and history of Korean temple cuisine. “The fourth festival will break away from the usual lineup of restaurants and hotels. It will introduce Korean temple food and its culture during a weeklong festival,” said the introduction to the event on the festival website (www.finediningkorea.com). 

With Psy’s “Gentleman” music video being watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world, some of the spots where the video was shot are receiving worldwide attention. The spots currently in the limelight include 10 Corso Como Seoul, a multi-brand branch store of Milan’s famous shopping and dining complex offering designer clothes, beauty products and design objects. In the earlier part of the music video, Psy is featured dancing in the Cheongdam-dong store, surrounded by other cast m

Violin virtuoso will perform a broad range of classical music pieces from Baroque and Romantic to modern