Welcome

Welcome to Literature & Water.

This is my web-based experiment in improving both the frequency and quality with which I review the many books I read.

Why “Literature & Water”? Well, not only is this a holdover title from my personal (and too infrequently attended) personal blog, but it represents my personal philosophy and illustrates the sort of strange connections I perceive all around me.

Literature and water have disparate essences, yet they are linked intimately, as well. While water is literally destructive to most literature (be it paper-based or electronically-hosted), water runs richly through literature over time providing settings for Melville, Conrad, and Twain, providing theme for Eliot, Woolf, and Hemingway.

Both literature and water represent life: Water is life-in-Genesis, and literature is life-in-civilization. Most religions and mythologies begin the story of Creation with water, but that tradition exists through the story—the literature—itself.

What you find here will never be as high falutin as this introduction, I assure you.