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Michael Wood

Michael Wood’s books include America in the Movies, The Magician’s Doubts, The Road to Delphi and, most recently, Literature and the Taste of Knowledge. He teaches English and comparative literature at Princeton.

Originally published 24 January 2008

At the Movies

In the film moderately scrutable orientals play inscrutable orientals pretending to be inscrutable orientals [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography

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In the LRB archive

At the Movies · 9 July 2009

subscriber-only content Let’s Cut to the Wail · 11 June 2009

At the Movies · 11 June 2009

At the Movies · 14 May 2009

subscriber-only content A Preference for Torquemada · 9 April 2009

  • Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy: The Making of GKC 1874-1908 by William Oddie  Buy this book
  • The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton  Buy this book

At the Movies · 9 April 2009

At the Movies · 12 March 2009

subscriber-only content More like a Cemetery · 26 February 2009

  • Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews  Buy this book
  • 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer  Buy this book

At the Movies · 12 February 2009

subscriber-only content Sink or Skim · 1 January 2009

  • Clea by Lawrence Durrell

At the Movies · 1 January 2009

  • Milk directed by Gus Van Sant (0000)

After the Movies · 4 December 2008

Double Thought · 20 November 2008

  • Franz Kafka: The Office Writings edited by Stanley Corngold, Jack Greenberg and Benno Wagner, translated by Eric Patton and Ruth Hein  Buy this book

At the Movies · 6 November 2008

  • Blindness directed by Fernando Meirelles (2008)

At the Movies · 9 October 2008

At the Movies · 11 September 2008

subscriber-only content Yeats and Violence · 14 August 2008

At the Movies · 14 August 2008

At the Movies · 3 July 2008

At the Movies · 5 June 2008

Crabby, Prickly, Bitter, Harsh · 22 May 2008

  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky  Buy this book

At the Movies · 8 May 2008

At the Movies · 20 March 2008

At the Movies · 21 February 2008

At the Movies · 24 January 2008

Marvellous Money · 3 January 2008

  • The Maias: Episodes from Romantic Life by José Maria Eça de Queirós, translated by Margaret Jull Costa  Buy this book

At the Movies · 13 December 2007

At the Movies · 15 November 2007

At the Movies · 18 October 2007

subscriber-only content In a Cold Country · 4 October 2007

At the Movies · 20 September 2007

subscriber-only content Understanding Forwards · 20 September 2007

  • William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert Richardson  Buy this book

At the Movies · 16 August 2007

At the Movies · 19 July 2007

subscriber-only content Beetle bonkers in the beams · 5 July 2007

At the Movies · 21 June 2007

At the Movies · 24 May 2007

At the Movies · 26 April 2007

  • 300 directed by Zack Snyder (2006)

At the Movies · 22 March 2007

Don’t you care? · 22 February 2007

At the Movies · 22 February 2007

At the Movies · 25 January 2007

  • Babel directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (2006)

Humming along · 4 January 2007

  • Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon

At the Movies · 14 December 2006

At the Movies · 16 November 2006

At the Movies · 19 October 2006

At the Movies · 21 September 2006

  • Volver directed by Pedro Almodóvar (2006)

At the Movies · 17 August 2006

At the Movies · 20 July 2006

  • Rebecca directed by Alfred Hitchcock (re-release, 2006)

There is no cure · 6 July 2006

At the Movies · 8 June 2006

At the Movies · 11 May 2006

At the Movies · 6 April 2006

  • L’Enfant directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (2005)
  • Caché directed by Michael Haneke (2005)

subscriber-only content Chasing Kites · 23 February 2006

subscriber-only content His Shoes · 5 January 2006

  • The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

subscriber-only content Why praise Astaire? · 20 October 2005

Dynamite for Cologne · 21 July 2005

subscriber-only content We offered them their chance · 2 June 2005

subscriber-only content Haunted by Kindnesses · 21 April 2005

subscriber-only content The Thing · 6 January 2005

Just Folks · 4 November 2004

subscriber-only content Dressed as an Admiral · 2 September 2004

  • Memoirs by Pablo Neruda, translated by Hardie St Martin  Buy this book
  • Isla Negra: A Bilingual Edition by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid  Buy this book
  • The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems edited by Mark Eisner  Buy this book

Jasmines in the Hallway · 3 June 2004

  • Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Edith Grossman

What Henry didn’t do · 18 March 2004

subscriber-only content What Henry Knew · 18 December 2003

subscriber-only content Diary: Michael Wood in the City of Good Air · 20 November 2003

On Edward Said · 23 October 2003

subscriber-only content ‘Mmmmm’ not ‘Hmmm’ · 11 September 2003

  • Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg

Most Sincerely, Folks · 5 June 2003

subscriber-only content Things I Said No To · 17 April 2003

  • Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings by Italo Calvino  Buy this book

Impossible Wishes · 6 February 2003

  • The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann edited by Ritchie Robertson
  • Thomas Mann: A Biography by Hermann Kurzke, translated by Leslie Willson

Karel Reisz Remembered · 12 December 2002

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  • Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet 1871-81 by Joseph Frank

Memories of a Skinny Girl · 9 May 2002

  • The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Edith Grossman
  • The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War by Jean Franco

subscriber-only content Start thinking · 7 March 2002

  • Dicta and Contradicta by Karl Kraus, translated by Jonathan McVity

Just one of those ends · 13 December 2001

  • Apocalypse Now Redux directed by Francis Ford Coppola (re-release, 2001)
  • Marlon Brando by Patricia Bosworth

subscriber-only content Viscounts Swapping Stories · 1 November 2001

  • The Work of Mourning by Jacques Derrida, translated by Pascale-Anne Brault
  • A Taste for the Secret by Jacques Derrida and Maurizio Ferraris, translated by Giacomo Donis

11 September · 4 October 2001

subscriber-only content Freedom to Tango · 19 April 2001

  • Babu Fictions: Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Novels by Tabish Khair
  • An Obedient Father by Akhil Sharma
  • The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
  • The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

subscriber-only content Six Scotches More · 8 February 2001

subscriber-only content J. xx Drancy. 13/8/42 · 30 November 2000

  • The Search Warrant by Patrick Modiano, translated by Joanna Kilmartin

A Kind of Slither · 27 April 2000

  • The Unruly Life of Woody Allen by Marion Meade

Scentless Murder · 2 March 2000

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Four Thousand, Tops · 14 October 1999

  • Headlong by Michael Frayn

Cheerfully Chopping up the World · 2 July 1998

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  • On the History of Film Style by David Bordwell
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Post-Paranoid · 5 February 1998

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Scenes in the Sack · 11 March 1993

  • Memories of the Ford Administration by John Updike

Not currently in the LRB archive

 not available in archive That Wooden Leg · 7 September 2000

  • An Unspeakable Betrayal: Selected Writings of Luis Buñuel translated by Garrett White

 not available in archive The Man without Predicates · 20 July 2000

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 not available in archive Other Ways to Leave the Room · 25 November 1999

 not available in archive Quite a Night! · 30 September 1999

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 not available in archive Capital W, Capital W · 19 August 1999

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  • Just as I Thought by Grace Paley

 not available in archive What Kind of Guy? · 10 June 1999

 not available in archive A Talent for Beginnings · 15 April 1999

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 not available in archive Productive Mischief · 4 February 1999

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 not available in archive The Problem of Reality · 1 October 1998

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 not available in archive Don’t tell nobody · 3 September 1998

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  • Havana Dreams by Wendy Gimbel

 not available in archive Out of the Lock-Up · 2 April 1998

  • Collected Poetry and Prose by Wallace Stevens, edited by Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson