Magnificent Octopus

Where Tigers Are at Home , by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès, is a massive, sprawling monster of a book. I have been reading it since March, and ...

Eléazard is not only reviewing a manuscript concerning Athanasius Kircher. He keeps a notebook: Minor Chinese Officials: Official in charg...

I've just seen Uraniborg , an exhibition of the work of Laurent Grasso at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. The exhibit is ...

METAPHYSICIANS OF TLÖN: Kircher is like them, he is not looking for the truth, nor even the probable, he's looking for the amazing. It n...

The Voynich Manuscript has become a beacon for a secular community of quasi-Talmudic scholars whose interpretive ingenuity and stamina have ...

"Do you know what word the Jesuits use to describe one of their order who has renounced his vows? They say he has become a 'satelli...

"For whom or for what are you in mourning?" she asked him point-blank, aware that this unexpected question shook him. Eléazard f...

Elaine, his wife, had never been able to bear this place where everything bore, like a stigma, the mold of deterioration, and this epidermal...

No one can walk beneath palm trees with impunity and ideas are sure to change in a land where elephants and tigers are at home This is the ...

Seven days, one beach, 2261 pages. Packed, and ready to go. I suspect I'm being overly optimistic. It is a family vacation after all. ...