Mahmoud Darwish once wrote: ‘All roads lead to you, even those I took to forget you.’ On first reading, it sounds like the lament of a man caught in the undertow of lost love, circling endlessly back to the figure he most wishes to escape. But linger with it a while, and the line grows … Continue reading All Roads Lead Back: On Darwish, Memory, and the Futility of Forgetting
Varney the Vampire; or, How to Milk a Penny Dreadful for 220 Chapters
The vampire, that pallid, nocturnal pest, has taken on many shapes over the centuries. Byron made him a sulky aristocrat. Stoker made him a real estate enthusiast with a fondness for bats. Hollywood turned him into either a suave lounge lizard or a disco-dancing count for children’s television. But before all that, we had Varney … Continue reading Varney the Vampire; or, How to Milk a Penny Dreadful for 220 Chapters
A Pair of Blue Eyes – Or, How Not to Court a Vicar’s Daughter
When I first took up Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes, I braced myself for the usual experience: a young woman falls in love, society disapproves, a man dangles from a cliff, and everyone ends up in a metaphorical ditch by chapter thirty. Hardy’s nothing if not consistent. He’s the grim reaper of literature - … Continue reading A Pair of Blue Eyes – Or, How Not to Court a Vicar’s Daughter
A Symposium of Souls
Every age writes its own dialogues. Plato had Athens, with wine and philosophers reclining in the glow of Socratic irony. I have my own fireside, bottles scattered across an oak table, and a cast of minds whose shadows have shaped my own: Hardy, Wilde, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Jung, Scruton - and, for my own amusement, Hartley … Continue reading A Symposium of Souls
Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice
Photo courtesy of Morbidology (2024) There are many epitaphs in the world that make one pause. Keats had his “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” and Shakespeare, ever the property lawyer, threatened to curse anyone who moved his bones. But Margorie McCall of Lurgan, County Armagh, went one better - or worse, … Continue reading Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice
Wording 