About stories of all kinds
Recently I found myself in a store aisle asking, Should I buy this canvas sign with black type on a white background stating "Do More With Less"? I was tempted. It was marked down. The lure of a deal sang its siren song. But the answer was, unsurprisingly, No. The existence of the sign is… Continue reading Less is Actually Less: The Story of Stuff
Two-hundred and five years ago today, January 17, 1820, the third Brontë sister was born. Named Anne, she, like her older sisters, first published under a male pseudonym: Acton Bell. She worked as a governess as well as writing poetry and novels. She wrote two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the… Continue reading “pretended to be deeply absorbed”
Ten years apart, set in two very different periods of Poe's life, the films The Raven (2012) and The Pale Blue Eye (2022) may not seem very similar portrayals of the American poet. Yet, when I rewatched them recently in anticipation of the 175th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's death, I found more correlation than… Continue reading “The man you’re looking for is a poet”: Edgar Allan Poe in Film
Poe has quickly become one of my favourite authors (if not the favourite judging by how often I reference him or his writings) and as such must have an extra special dedicated post for once rather than simply popping up throughout everything else I write like a macabre jack-in-the-box.
I'm not by any means a morning person, but I can sympathize with Richard Hannay here, the narrator of this Buchan tale: if you must ruin part of the day with unpleasantness, why not morning which is already a grim prospect to face anyway? Certainly, I've always thought I'm much more motivated and awake to… Continue reading “anyhow depressed and only half-awake”
There's nothing like reading to disabuse one of the notion that they are unique, alone in the universe, an anomaly unto themselves. Yet, at times, in the insulation of our own consciousness, we are inclined to imagine ourselves the sole inhabitants of the universe. In a way, we are the only inhabitor of our own… Continue reading “set down in some old book”
It's Aldous Huxley's 130th birthday today. He was born July 26, 1894 in England and became a respected writer and philosopher, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times throughout his life. Huxley's writing has insight into human nature and its social dynamics and development, from the famous Brave New World to his seemingly… Continue reading “to say what one thinks”
Donna Tartt [has an] incredibly beautiful, smooth, flowing writing style that simply sings to your senses as you read along. So much so, it disguises the fact that there is actually very little happening in the plot, character beats, or anything else besides.
I find myself checked constantly by thoughts of "but what about so-and-so? wouldn't they have something to say about it? what about my responsibilities?" These considerations are my "fetters of duty" and and "regulations of honour."
It impressed me at times as a dark mirror to some of P.G. Wodehouse's writings, for its comedy and caricature, though Wodehouse tends to be more forgiving in outlook, whereas Waugh does not shy away from brutal consequences.
Fictitiously Yours 