The Ironist
Differing Perspectives
Say Not, “the Struggle Nought Availeth.”
The new year is here... As the year turns, I find myself thinking about what we carry forward and what truly matters. The grand sweep of The Lord of the Rings enthralled me in high school. I had read it two or three times by the time I reached university. It was the...
The Angel of the Archive: The Marginalia of God
Jonathan writes about a mythic book with marginalia that might reveal more than any book today. What kind of an Ironist are You? Take the quiz and find out. It is well known—at least among those who subscribe to obscure theological journals—that Anselmo of Bruges held...
Seeking the BetterLife™: Exercise Choice with the Secret Joy of Irony
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness - Wordsworth, Independence and Resolution, Stanza VII Children prove we all seek a better life. They quickly learn that walking helps them . They learn that talking gets them...
The Angel of the Archive: A Lost Medieval Legend
Jonathan revives the myth of an angel who collects the edges of the written world. What kind of an Ironist are You? Take the quiz and find out. Among the minor curiosities of the early Rhineland monastic tradition there exists a nearly forgotten medieval legend,...
Folk Wisdom – Part 2 of 2
In this piece, Peter talks about the enduring power of inherited wisdom and how neglecting it leaves us unmoored. In a speech delivered in 1858, Abraham Lincoln foresaw the consequences of the ruinous Civil War that was to devastate his nation: “A house divided...
Folk Wisdom – Part 1 of 2
In this piece, Peter talks about how Hagar’s pride blinds her to the shared moral wisdom all humans depend on. In Margaret Laurence’s novel The Stone Angel, the combative central character Hagar Shipley (nee Currie) tells the story of her own life. The reader must be...
Dinner Is Served: Stalin, Dominating at the Table
Continuing his reflections on the great meals of history and literature, Jonathan Bennett recalls a feast where appetite became an instrument of power. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin enjoyed his food. By the time of his death in 1953 he had grown stout enough that the...
Fire: The Unforgiving Ironist
Writers have always feared and worshipped the most perilous ironist of all — the restless, consuming, and merciless fire. “It was a pleasure to burn.” Few first lines have scorched themselves so deeply into memory. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury gave us a world where...
Sea: The Oldest Ironist
Aashisha traces writers' obsession with the oldest ironist of all — the boundless, beloved, and beautiful sea. The sea is a fascinating concept, not only because water makes up three-fourths of the planet as well as the human body (thanks, fourth-grade writer mind)...