Art and the Search for Immortality
In the 1982 film Blade Runner, a group of synthetic humans called replicants abandon their various posts off world and make an illegal return to Earth. Their motives become clear…
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Literature
20 posts
Altered Carbon: An Interview with Author Richard Morgan
In this episode of the Two for Tea podcast, our editor-in-chief Iona Italia talks to novelist Richard K. Morgan about his classic novel Altered Carbon, which raises philosophical questions about the…
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In Defence of Liberal Education: Roosevelt Montás’ “Rescuing Socrates”
Roosevelt Montás is the author of a powerful new book called Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, which is…
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Naming the Unnameable: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and the Defence of Free Speech
We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books;…
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The Trick of Evocative Science Writing: “Books Do Furnish a Life” by Richard Dawkins
In his previous essay collection, Science in the Soul, Richard Dawkins ponders why a scientist has never received the Nobel Prize in Literature—the only possible exception, Henri Bergson, was “more…
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The Disrupt Texts Movement
#DisruptTexts is an American educational movement whose website declares it to be “a crowdsourced, grass roots effort by teachers for teachers,” with a mission “to challenge the traditional canon in…
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The Novel Virus: In Defense of Fiction
As 2020 draws to a close, there is a pre-echo of normalcy in the air, the possibility of a return to a glorious summer even as we head into what…
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The Delight of Sentience: “Inside Story: A Novel” by Martin Amis
Martin Amis opens and closes Inside Story by addressing the reader directly. From the beginning, then, we are confidantes of the author and the implied promise of the book’s title is fulfilled—this…
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Own the Filth: Writing Into the Ethical Compromises of Fiction
Novelists these days face difficult working conditions, even the few who land seven-figure deals. Witness this year’s fiercest skirmish on the literary frontline of the culture wars: the clash over…
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The Unbeliever Knows His Qur’an Best
Photo by Masjid Pogung Dalangan The Koran! well, come put me to the test Lovely old book in hideous error drest Believe me, I can quote the Koran too, The…
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“Lying Bastard” by Clint Margrave. Book Review.
Grim, uncouth, and hilarious: these are the adjectives I’d use to describe Lying Bastard, the upcoming debut novel of prolific poet and polemicist Clint Margrave. The story follows the mindscape…
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Dostoevsky’s Campaign Against Rationalism and Progress
Fyodor Dostoevsky was defeated by history. A man who viciously attacked and satirized the ideologies of rationalism and communism and defended traditional religious and family structures, Dostoevsky died just decades…
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Being Human Is A Quest: A Review of Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte
Inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-nominated novel Quichotte (pronounced in the French way, key-SHOT) is a work of postmodern picaresque with a metafictional narrative…
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Politics vs. Aesthetics: Why Great Art Cannot Conform to Our Political Views
Percy Bysshe Shelley proclaimed poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Today, that distinction belongs to Twitter mobs. Dispensing mob justice in brief and brutal 280-character decrees, these sneering Solons…
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Why We Need Fantasy Literature
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has sold around 150 million copies worldwide, which makes it one of the bestselling fiction novels of all time. Some even…
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The Ugly Truth About Not Seeing Beauty
To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it come into…
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Aesthetic Denialism and the Rise of Acadumbia: Yale, Bloom, English and How It All Went South
The Awakening of a Passion In the early 1990s, when I was in high school, I fell in love with literature and decided I wanted more. I attended a middle…
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Literature, Authenticity and Race
As Cathy Young observes in a recent essay, the media has not given J. D. Salinger a warm welcome into his centennial year. Two days before the celebrated author’s birthday, the Washington…
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