Last year, I stumbled upon this little gem on Amazon, priced at the princely sum of 23p. Naturally, I couldn’t resist - who could, at such a bargain? It brought back a flood of memories from years ago when an English teacher handed me a tattered old copy, its pages barely holding together. Where that … Continue reading The Agonising Genius of Blaise Pascal: A Personal Ramble Through Pensées
Tag: existential
Death by Drapery: Tolstoy’s Morbid Masterpiece and the Mediocrity of Ivan Ilyich
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, or as I like to call it, 'How to Have a Midlife Crisis While Actively Dying.' This novella by Tolstoy is less a story and more a literary post-mortem of a man who spends his life climbing the social ladder only to realise, with the grim clarity of impending death, … Continue reading Death by Drapery: Tolstoy’s Morbid Masterpiece and the Mediocrity of Ivan Ilyich
Pebbles, Prose, and Pointlessness: Beckett’s Molloy and the Art of Going Nowhere
Question: have you ever sucked a pebble? Samuel Beckett’s Molloy is often heralded as a towering monument of modernist literature, though whether it’s a lighthouse of enlightenment or an impassable granite slab is a matter of perspective. This novel, the first in Beckett’s famous trilogy, plunges us into a world where sucking stones takes on existential significance … Continue reading Pebbles, Prose, and Pointlessness: Beckett’s Molloy and the Art of Going Nowhere
Gloom with a View: The Miserable Genius of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground is an unparalleled triumph of literary genius, a veritable tour-de-force that renders the ordinary, extraordinary. In this marvelously morose masterpiece, Dostoyevsky transforms the existential crisis of a middle-aged, maladjusted civil servant into an epic odyssey of self-deprecation and philosophical ponderings, peppered with the perfect balance of wry humour and existential dread. … Continue reading Gloom with a View: The Miserable Genius of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground
To the Land of Dreams I Run
To the land of dreams I run, When the day makes off with the sun. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." - Matthew 11:28 There comes a time, as the last embers of daylight are swallowed by the abyss of night, when I … Continue reading To the Land of Dreams I Run
Wording 