Gorgias (483–375 BCE) wrote his Encomium of Helen (“in praise of Helen”) as a sort of exercise in the use of language, an example piece, if you will, to attract potential students of rhetoric. We might classify it, in Aristotelian terms, as an epideictic, a “praise and blame” piece of writing. Jean Cocteau, whose treatment… Continue reading Poetry on trial — reading Jean Cocteau’s Testament of Orpheus in the light of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen
Silvia Park’s debut novel looks like a cautionary tale about ai, but at its core is inherently human. I was initially very surprised to learn that Korean author Silvia Park’s debut novel Luminous was initially intended to be a children’s book. Most children’s books do not feature intimate scenes between police officers and robots in… Continue reading Luminous — an accidentally timely tale
“Do I really need to read classics?” – for many years, even despite having majored in literature, my answer would’ve been a simple: “no”. My initial experience with classics was similar to that of many others; they were forced down my throat in high school and made me occasionally question whether I liked reading at all. Countless… Continue reading Do you really need to read the classics?
Part memoir, part obituary-of-sorts dedicated to Arundhati Roy’s late mother, Mary Roy, this somewhat holy yet unorthodox text, Mother Mary Comes to Me, redefines motherhood, all the while reforming the memoir genre. Bound by a ruby red cover and veiled with a half sleeve fashioning Roy’s portraits in young adulthood and now, this text underlines… Continue reading Mother Mary Comes to Me — the memoir redefining motherhood
As someone who grew up feeling “uncool”, whatever that entails, to see Cameron Crowe brand himself with that very title seems paradoxical. Nobody had a coming-of-age like his. Crowe spent his formative years engulfed by his boundless love for music, something I relate to myself. Crowe’s passion for music propelled him into the intoxicating world… Continue reading An elixir of rock and roll — Cameron Crowe’s The Uncool
“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy”, Sylvia Plath journalled in 1959, four years before her death. “From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and a womb and to adore men who are the enemies of my kind”. A year later, in 1960, poet Anne Sexton underwent an illegal… Continue reading The womb is a haunted house — looking to the works of Plath and Sexton as a woman in 2026
Lately, I’ve noticed a pattern in the novels I gravitate toward: the women at the centre of them are exhausted. Not poetically exhausted but clinically, emotionally and sometimes strategically depleted. They’re overworked, undernourished, overstimulated or simply done with pretending life is manageable. But strangely, I find them compelling. Ottessa Moshegh’s narrator in My year of… Continue reading Why we’re obsessed with Exhausted Women in fiction
A house in Northern Massachusetts, with its vast and domineering landscape, is the prime mover of Daniel Mason’s ecological fiction North Woods. From this yellow home, constructed prior to the American War of Independence, the natural world unfolds and transforms the lives of its inhabitants. A Puritan couple, a passionate apple farmer and his life-bonded… Continue reading The Second Coming, again and again and again in North Woods
TikTok, as an app, and the hobby of reading books have a somewhat complicated affair. They are opposites in many ways, an age-old tradition of stories being told through the written word versus short, easily-consumable and readily available pieces of media with little deeper meaning. TikTok has had an adverse effect on the younger generations’… Continue reading “As Seen on TikTok” – The Epidemic of ‘BookTok’ Literature
Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, is an 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Set in the late 18th century, it follows scientist Victor Frankenstein’s creation of life and the terrible events that are precipitated by his abandonment of his creation. It is a Gothic novel in that it combines supernatural elements with horror, death and… Continue reading Frankenstein — how Mary Shelley’s sci-fi classic offers lessons for us today about the dangers of playing god
