New Oxford Review

Oct 16, 2024 | newoxfordreview.org | Willa Cather

The Violent Bear It Away. By Flannery O’Connor. It’s too bad that Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1938) is regarded generally as little more than a sentimental piece of Americana. The milkman, the strawberry phosphates, choir practice, Wally’s stamp collection, Emily and George’s wedding — these quaint elements of the play are merely the shadows through which we find the painful longing for the divine in and through the movements of the ordinary.

Sep 19, 2024 | newoxfordreview.org | Kazuo Ishiguro

Volume > Issue > What We Can Learn from James Bond about Western Civ This year, for me, has been the year of trips, and the one most on my mind is the journey I took to Scotland (source of the back-country ethos that rules Cadiz, Ohio, my adopted hometown), where I spent ten days walking the West Highland Way with my sons — a project that afforded all kinds of adventures, the most “press ready” of which was being mistaken for the actor who played Hellboy in the eponymous 2004 and 2008 film...

Aug 28, 2024 | newoxfordreview.org | Anthony Burgess

“It is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere…. For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are…. The masses are always impressed by the superficial appearance of things.” — Machiavelli in The PrinceHe’s the greatest dissembler the papacy has ever known. What other conclusion can be drawn from the most recent, R-rated episode of The Francis Follies?

Mar 20, 2024 | newoxfordreview.org | Walker Percy |Edgar Allan Poe

Caitlin Smith Gilson is professor of philosophy at University of Holy Cross in New Orleans and visiting professor of philosophy at Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in Rome. She is the author of eight books of Catholic theology, Christian philosophy, and religious poetry.

Mar 15, 2023 | newoxfordreview.org | John le Carré

Look out, folks, the latest figures are in, and, as predicted, they’re not good. Predicted? Yes. By whom? By yours truly, of course (’scuse me while I pop my collar). But seriously, any old lunkhead could have seen this coming. In my column “Will the Coronavirus Lockdowns Usher in a Mustard-Seed Church?” (Sept.