fiction and creative non-fiction from Brennan Quenneville
The explosive success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code made him unfathomably wealthy but it also indirectly made him a punching bag for a certain type of literary snob. Yes, that includes me. It's not interesting, especially in 2020, to note that Dan Brown's prose is stilted and awkward, that his descriptions of female [...]
When we first meet him, King Théoden of Rohan is in thrall to his laughably evil advisor, Gríma Wormtongue. Through the efforts of Gandalf, Théoden throws off the yoke of his oppressor and rediscovers his strength and his sanity. But, for all his bonding with Pippin and his gracious speeches to Eomer and Eowyn, he [...]
Before reading The Silmarillion, there are some questions that you should probably ask yourself: Do you know the basic stories of Gil-Galad and Beren One-Hand? Do you recognize names like Barahir, Grond and Fëanor and want to know more about them? Have you figured out, through context alone, what (fictional) words like dagor and ithil [...]
When it comes to post-rock soundtracks, the focus is usually on Explosions in the Sky because their music has been featured in several films while Tides of Man is often overlooked because, well, they haven't. But just because Tides of Man hasn't written the soundtrack for a film doesn't mean they can't write the soundtrack [...]
Though its opening line is among the most famous in all the Western canon, it's the closing lines of Charles Dickens' revolutionary classic A Tale of Two Cities that resonate with unshakable beauty. (For what it's worth, we don't even seem to know that opening line quite as well as we like to think because [...]
Over the past six months, I've posted two new articles on this site every week (save holidays) and, barring a few digressions into other topics, they've mostly alternated between discussing music and books. (Sometimes both.) But over the next month, things are going to be a little bit different. Sticking to my two-posts-per-week schedule, I'm [...]
For a book about children, William Golding's 1954 classic Lord of the Flies contains an awful lot of fatality. There's the fiery disappearance of the boy with the birthmark, the unseen demise of the fighter pilot whose parachuting corpse becomes, for a time, the embodiment of the Beast and the slaughter of a fair number [...]
It's one of the most famous moments in syndicated Christmas special history. Linus, wearing a green beanie and carrying his trustworthy blue blanket, steps to the front of the stage in an empty auditorium. A single spotlight illuminates him as he recites scripture from memory, describing to his best friend, the constantly beleaguered Charlie Brown, [...]
There is a spot along the southern wall of the Ann Arbor public library where the shelves wrap into an odd and isolated corner. There, on a shelf at right about eye level, you can find a copy of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Farthest Shore. Or at least you could, for many years. I [...]
Let's just get this out in the open: Part of the reason that I write is that I want to live forever. I am not alone in that feeling. Surveying the members of any creative field will turn up an awful lot of similar sentiment. A brief (and highly unscientific) survey of some of the creative types [...]
Songs & Stories 