There he stands - or rather, rides - our St. George, spear braced, horse rearing, dragon writhing beneath (featured image below). It’s an image both timeless and terribly timely. Though centuries have passed since this tale was first illuminated in parchment or carved into stone, its symbolic force remains more urgent now than ever. For … Continue reading St. George, the Dragon, and the Colours We Raise
Tag: existentialism
All Roads Lead Back: On Darwish, Memory, and the Futility of Forgetting
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
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 