Knut Hamsun was a supporter of Norway's fascist Nasjonal Samling party and an admirer of Nazism; he gave his Nobel Prize for Literature to Joseph Goebbels; he hailed Hitler as "a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations" in an obituary for the Nazi leader; he critic

Anxiety, Fleeting, Ironic, Modernist literature, Organic, Pastoral, Primal, Psychological, Visceral

The context for Malcolm Lowry's masterpiece, "Under the Volcano," is simple: a single day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin. It happens to be his last. The place is Quauhnahuac, Mexico, the day the Day of the Dead. As the locals celebrate the souls of the deceased, Firmin (also known as "the Consul"), h

Death, Dense, Euphoric, Hallucinatory, Modernist literature, Sprawling, Tragic

Kipling was never one to pity the vanquished or cry for the victim. He preferred to praise the victors, fortify the reign of imperialism, legitimize and rationalize colonial order. Having lived in both Bombay and England, Kipling came to see English civilization as the only hope for a dirty, barbaric

Dark, Dense, Eclectic, Masculine, Modernist literature, Modernist poetry, Tense

Jane Austen has been reincarnated in the personage of Kazuo Ishiguro. The great novelist of early-nineteenth-century English manners, who observed the moral inconsistencies of the nobility and argued for a form of social meritocracy, could not have hoped for a more loyal and perfect heir to her legac

Composed, Contemplative, Demure, Melancholy, Modernist literature, Tragic