The Ironist
Differing Perspectives
Gordon of Khartoum
An overdue retrospective Major General Charles George Gordon, CB, 1833-1885 The Victorian Age was an idealistic age, beginning with the might of the Royal Navy breaking the thralldom of slavery outside the British Empire. There was a dawning acceptance of Darwin’s...
A Culture of Reticence
The past is another country. They do things differently there. – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (A mosaic from Hadrumetum, in Tunisia, an important pre-Carthage Phoenician city, which depicts Aeneas surrounded by Clio, (history), and Melpomene (tragedy). This...
The Luring of Children
A Bookseller’s stall in Kutaisi, Georgia Now the ‘Luring of Children’ is a provocative title for an article in a non-political periodical like The Ironist. It comes from a picture, (above), that I took in Georgia (the country), recently, at a bookseller’s stall in the...
The Catholic Club. The first chapter, when Lakshmi first meets Boaz
Chapter 1 India This is the story of my sister Lakshmi. She is two minutes older than I am. The story starts on a chilly morning in early January, and we were high up on the ramparts of the great Merangarh Fort. I will never forget the day. That was the day Lakshmi...
Finding Her Voice
Finding Her Voice Lou-Ellen Lewis was a quiet girl given to reading. She was not shy, but her reflective disposition discouraged her from revealing her inmost thoughts openly in class. Unlike so many of the other girls, enthusiastic and vital as they tended...
Possession
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. --F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby I have often wondered why it is that some slight and unremarkable memories remain strongly embedded in our waking consciousness while others...
The Art Thief
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel : A Book Review This year, 2023, has seen the publication of Michael Finkel’s The Art Thief, a riveting true account of the escapades of Stephane Breitwieser, a native of Alsace, and probably the most prolific art thief in history...
What can We Believe?
The Need For Critical Thinking Children, quite rightly, expect adults to look out for them. Maybe, when we grow up, we continue to expect others in authority to look after us. Or we WANT to believe they care. The more fools we are. Last night my bank called and...
About The Ironist
A Tonic for the Age The Ironist is an open forum to encourage discussion and reflection upon the written word and the world around us to promote critical analysis. Irony, "the recognition of incongruities" (Cleanth Brooks), is a tool that permits differing...