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A literary criticism of the novel "High Skies and Fat Horses" by William Wallisch is presented. Topics discussed include the author's comment on the Korean War setting of the novel, her perspective on the Vietnam conflict, and an overview of various cast of characters of the book. Also mentioned is the author's view on character Captain Whitman and his alcoholism.

This article is a comparative study of two epic works that share a historical setting and a broad political outlook, but diverge significantly in at least one respect. Frequent and heavy alcohol consumption is a feature of both Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day and John Dos Passos's USA trilogy, but the way in which these authors describe heavy drinking – and hedonistic behaviour in general – indicates fundamental differences between the modernism of Dos Passos and Pynchon's postmodernist strategies. The article contends that this aspect of Pynchon's novel represents a critique of attitudes within the twentieth-century American left towards sensuality, patriarchy and the failure of leftist aspiration within a contemporary context that invokes such subjects as the complicity of consumption, terrorism and the ethics of political assassination. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary critique is presented for the 19th-century American novel "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and the short story "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!" by Herman Melville, focusing on their engagement with the theme of alcoholism. Topics addressed include the distinct presence of alcoholics in both stories, the role of escapism as an early symptom of alcoholism, and Melville's social intentions of presenting alcohol as something to be avoided.