In my university days and for years after I made a point of seeking out the best literary criticism to further my appreciation of the classic novels and poems I was reading. One work of criticism that has been a lodestar for me over the years is Irving Howe’s impressive account, Politics and The … [Read more...]
Cold War Casualties in the True North Strong and Free
I have just had the exhilarating experience of reading the new novel by Winnipeg’s Margaret Sweatman, a political thriller set in the heart of the Cold War years. I was intrigued by the title – Mr Jones – as that was indeed the name we gave to the first book club I belonged to – the Mr. Jones Book … [Read more...]
The Gallant Yet Illegal Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War
It was in Spain that men learned that one can be right and still be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own reward. It is this, without doubt, which explains why so many men throughout the world regard the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy. - Albert … [Read more...]
A Tale of Two Lawyers
I recently reread Charles Dickens’ vivid evocation of Paris in the years when the French Revolution had descended into the bloodletting of the Terror, as well as London, which served as a home for French exiles who had fled the murderous impulse for revenge that had swept up the long- suffering and … [Read more...]
A Film Series: “Do the Rights Thing”
LawNow’s long-time Law and Literature columnist Rob Normey has been deeply involved in the development of a monthly film series called Do the Rights Thing: Standing up for Human Rights in History. The film series was developed by the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights and is being … [Read more...]
Sacco and Vanzetti: The Never-ending Wrong
I’ve got no time to tell this tale the dicks and bulls are on my trail But I’ll remember these two good men That died to show me how to live -Woody Guthrie, Two Good Men, from Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti I have long been fascinated by the American case that was … [Read more...]
The Blackmailer’s Charter: Victims in British Film and Theatre – Part 2
This is the second part to the article, The Blackmailer’s Charter: Victims in British Film and Theatre. I can’t neglect to mention a bold play that preceded it by a few years. Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey (1958), staged by the innovative and brilliant Theatre Workshop under Joan Littlewood, … [Read more...]
The Blackmailer’s Charter: Victims in British Film and Theatre
I recently saw the 1961 British film Victim, starring one of my favorite actors, Dirk Bogarde. Dirk plays the highly successful barrister, Melville Farr, expected by his staff to take silk very soon (that is, become an eminent Queen’s Counsel, with a judgeship in his bright future as well). We see … [Read more...]
Cronaca Nera: Two True Crime Books From Italy
The Fatal Gift of Beauty:The Trials of Amanda Knox by Nina Burleigh I had largely finished this book when the news came that the Italian Appeals Court – the Court of Cassation – had, on March 26 ruled that American university student Amanda Knox and Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, briefly her … [Read more...]
Resistance to Dictatorship and Piercing the Immunity of the General
AUTHOR'S NOTE This column is a continuation of a discussion of these two books. The first part was published in LawNow March/April 2012. A look at Carmen Aguirre’s Something Fierce: Memoirs of A Revolutionary Daughter (2011) and Heraldo Normeydo Mendoza’s The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto … [Read more...]