The Ironist
Differing Perspectives
What The Remains of the Day Teaches About Life’s Ironies
In The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro holds up a mirror to our own compromises— how much of life we trade away in the name of duty. “The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.” I wish. To be...
Irony #2 – The Virtue of the Ironist
Irony and the human condition: Peter Scotchmer on why double vision matters more than ever. “…the ironist is caught in a boundary zone between two opposed and mutually exclusive perspectives… between the necessity to believe in the world as it ought to be, and the...
The Banality of Evil
Irony, #1 – Hannah Arendt, the Refugee from Königsberg - Nigel writes about a stateless thinker who made irony her weapon against totalitarianism. Hannah Arendt, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture Königsberg was a jewel on the coast of the Baltic. For...
In Defence of Leisure
Forget "live-to-work". The ancients believed leisure—not work—was the highest purpose of human life. In this essay, Jonathan defends self-cultivation through art, conversation, and exploration. “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,...
The Reading Chair Backstory : On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith has called On Beauty an “homage” to E.M. Forster’s Howards End, though not in a plot-by-plot sense.
The Reading Chair : On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith’s On Beauty is a novel about family, art, and class but mostly, it’s about the exquisite awkwardness of believing in ideas that no longer seem to work. “The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” — On Beauty, Zadie Smith Have you ever...
Ramblings #7 : Passing the Torch
A warm, observant paean to the spirit of Port Elgin, capturing the rhythms of slow living and the Canadian summer – with touches of nostalgia and humour. This summer we had a family reunion at Port Elgin. Our daughter rented a cottage near the main beach, in an older...
Some Marginalia from Somerset Maugham II: The Double Life
Trying to uncover how Maugham wove himself into his fiction, be it through The Razor’s Edge, Of Human Bondage or The Moon and Sixpence “The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.” — W. Somerset Maugham The primary reason I admire Somerset Maugham is because I...
Some Marginalia from Somerset Maugham: What Counts as a Successful Life?
So many years have passed since I read The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham and yet his words seem more relevant today than ever. “He had a feeling that he was on the threshold of a discovery which he must make for himself.” - W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge My...