Latest posts
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The Brontë Sisters: Three Novels, One Parsonage
Three sisters in one cold parsonage wrote three of the greatest novels in English — under men’s names. On Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey together.
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The Aeneid: The Epic of Duty and Loss
Homer sang of rage; Virgil sang of duty, and its cost. On the Aeneid, Aeneas the dutiful refugee, the betrayal of Dido, and the saddest of the great epics.
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Persuasion: Austen’s Novel of Second Chances
Austen’s last novel, written as she was dying, has a quality none of the others has: autumn light. On Persuasion, the love got wrong, and the second chance.
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Notes from Underground: Spite as Freedom
‘I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man.’ On the furious clerk who spits on the crystal palace of reason — and the birth of the modern self.
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Becky Sharp: The Anti-Heroine of Vanity Fair
‘A novel without a hero’ — and one of the great anti-heroines. On Becky Sharp, the schemer we can’t help cheering, and the society she holds up a mirror to.
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Walden: The Case, and the Contradictions
‘I went to the woods to live deliberately’ — and his mother did his laundry. On Walden, the fair jab that misses the point, and a radical economics of attention.
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Machiavelli Was Not a Machiavellian
His name became a synonym for cruelty — unjustly. On why Machiavelli was a patriot and a failure, and The Prince a sadder book than its reputation.
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Steppenwolf: The Wolf Inside
The secret handbook of two generations. On Hesse’s Steppenwolf, the man who thinks he is two beings, and the discovery that the self is a crowd.
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Jude the Obscure: The Book That Ended Hardy’s Career
A bishop burned it, and Hardy never wrote another novel. On Jude the Obscure, his angriest and most modern book, and the price he paid for it.
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Far from the Madding Crowd: Hardy’s Kindest Book
Hardy is famous for cruelty, but his first great success was his warmest. On Far from the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba Everdene, and the best place to begin with Hardy.