Romantic Adventure

Ninety-Three 

by Victor Hugo

Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo is a glorious romantic imagining of an episode from the year 1793, during the French Revolution and the year of the Great Terror. The scene is in Brittany, where the leaders of the Revolution are being opposed by counterrevolutionary forces. The elderly Marquise de Lantenac, the group's leader, is a romantic hero in the purest sense. After arriving on the western coast, this Breton noble assumes the identity of a peasant. His goal is to lead the rebels, use them for the royalist cause, and create a chance for an English military invasion. He pursues this goal with ruthless determination.

The Revolutionary forces under the command of Gauvain, his grand-nephew, appear to be in control of his destiny. Gauvain, the former Vicomte de Gauvain, is facing Lantenac after giving up his aristocratic background to support the republican cause. Gauvain is in charge of the republican forces that support Marat and are entrusted with finding and eliminating Lantenac.

Cimourdain, a former priest and Gauvain's tutor who is now an ardent revolutionary, is the third main character. The political principles that Gauvain has embraced were initially taught to him by Cimourdain. Cimourdain has a secret—the one weak point in his ideological armor—because he has loved Gauvain since he was a young child, treating him like the son he never had. Marat, the revolutionary leader, sends Cimourdain to the Vendée as a special agent to make sure Gauvain stays loyal. Marat has heard unsettling rumors that Gauvain might be able to show mercy, which the revolutionary leaders consider to be a cardinal sin.

In addition to the intensely thrilling action, the story's ideas also contribute to its tension. Gauvain tells Cimourdain at one point:
"Among the lions, Louis XVI was a sheep. He made an attempt to escape in order to protect himself. . . But not everyone can be a lion who wants to. His feeble attempt was regarded as a crime."
He asks Cimourdain, "Lions? What are they?"
"This made Cimourdain think. He raised his head and said, 'Those lions are consciences. Those lions are ideas. Those lions are principles.'" (pp. 197-98)

While Gauvain is a man of action, a revolutionary for the republic, he is also a thinker, and it is his thoughts about the humanity of men that lead him to his ultimate actions.
The grandeur of this novel is superb, while Hugo builds suspense in every section. Some scenes are so vivid that you are unlikely to forget them. One scene that is sometimes excerpted from the novel is the great cannon episode, depicting a loose cannon on a ship of anti-revolutionary French Royalists sailing towards Brittany to aid the anti-revolutionary Chouannerie rebellion.
The whole of the novel is like this, filled with one astonishing experience after another, keeping this reader spellbound.

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The Constructed Self

Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth 

by Hermann Hesse

In the Prolog to Demian, Herman Hesse states that "each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path." (p. 2) Does reality exist outside of our "constructed self"? Is every man on the road instead? Hesse attempts to tell the tale of one young man's journey toward self-discovery thru Emil Sinclair and his relationship with Max Demian.
Demian gives a first-person narrative of Sinclair's life that was written shortly after World War I and focuses on significant moments from his early years, between the ages of ten and twenty. His friendship with Max Demian, an older boy who saves him from a bully and pushes him to think for himself in order to break free from his parents' pietistic lifestyle, dominates his childhood memories. Emil adopts Pistorius, a renegade theologian, as his new mentor after leaving for boarding school. He also develops platonic feelings for a young girl he sees in a park. He meets Demian again at the university where he enrolls and continues to grow spiritually until Demian departs for battle. Emil's realization that he doesn't require outside guardians like Demian leads to his eventual spiritual independence.

Hesse draws upon Nietzsche, Jung, and others for his ideas, but the story is almost an archetypal example of the search for both meaning and identity. The forming of an identity involves discovering values, forming beliefs, and learning how to deal with reality. It involves reconciling the two worlds of his life, the world of light represented by a home filled with order and Christian goodness, and the world of dark that exists in the streets of the town with the temptations of sex, violence, and lust. It is only through his relationship with Demian that Emil is able to escape from the temptations of this life, at least for a time.

Emil is not satisfied with a life of quiet piety. Life for Emil includes his dream life. He tells a friend, "I live in my dreams—that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference." (p. 118) The experiences of Emil are dramatic and result in a rejection of the conventional life for one of a seeker. In his search Emil confronts his beliefs, dreams, and more. An epiphany occurs on one spring day when he is attracted by a young woman in the park. He names her Beatrice and is soon transformed "into a worshiper in a temple." (p. 81) He says,
"I had an ideal again; life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image." (p. 81)
Thus the narrator describes what in Jungian terms is his "anima." This inspires him to create and to read as his journey takes him in a new direction. For Hesse and for the reader, it is always a path on "a road toward himself."

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Tension and Murder

Literary Murder 

by Batya Gur

"The tension in the hall had slackened, as if the lights had gone out." - Batya Gur, a "Literary Murder"

Batya Gur's "Literary Murder: A Critical Case" is a cerebral, intensely atmospheric police procedural that strikes a balance between a sharp sociological critique of Israeli academia and a conventional whodunit framework. The story centers on Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon of the Jerusalem Serious Crimes Unit, a moody and intelligent man. He is asked to look into a startling double murder that takes place at Hebrew University Secondary School over the course of a single weekend. During a scuba diving excursion in Eilat, Iddo Dudai, a bright young lecturer, is subtly poisoned. In his campus office, Shaul Tirosh, the head of the Hebrew Literature Department and a highly regarded poet and cultural icon, is brutally bludgeoned to death. As Ohayon delves deeper, he must negotiate a closed-off, fiercely protective ecosystem where intellectual hierarchy, tenure, and artistic jealousy foster a murderous environment.

Readers who anticipate a thriller with lots of action and adrenaline may be disappointed. In order to allow the psychological tension to develop gradually through dialogue and character analysis, Gur purposefully takes a slow, methodical pace. Gur has a master's degree in Hebrew literature, so her portrayals of university life are very real. The book includes in-depth discussions and lengthy lectures on literary hermeneutics. These scenes are a great way to ground the world, but some mystery fans might find them a little boring. Ohayon is a particularly interesting, complex protagonist. He reads suspects like texts using his knowledge of literature and history, revealing their closely guarded secrets and hidden weaknesses. Readers who are patient will find this murder mystery to be a very intricate, slow-burning procedural. Anyone who enjoys a cerebral, atmospheric mystery in which the psychological terrain is as perilous as the crime should definitely pick it.

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Deadly Trenches

In Memoriam 

by Alice Winn

“Ellwood smiled, and a sudden, dry bleakness spread over Gaunt’s heart as he thought of Hercules, and Hector, and all the heroes in myth who found happiness briefly, only for it not to be the end of the story.” ― Alice Winn, In Memoriam



In Memoriam, Alice Winn's debut novel, is a remarkable work of historical fiction that skillfully strikes a balance between the visceral, unrelenting horrors of World War I and a tender, forbidden gay romance. It follows the lives of two affluent English boarding school students, Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, as they move from the idyllic safety of their youth into the deadly trenches of the Western Front. 

The fictional Preshute College is where the story begins in 1914. Sidney Ellwood, a charming boy who loves poetry, and Henry Gaunt, a reserved half-German, are best friends who are secretly in love. Gaunt enlists early to shield his family from anti-German sentiment and to get away from the excruciating weight of his suppressed emotions. Ellwood and many of their gullible classmates follow him to the front line after being horrified by his departure. The glorious war they envisioned turns into mud, trauma, shell shock, and catastrophic loss, and what follows is a brutal awakening.

Winn draws a contrast between the grim reality of mechanized slaughter and the idealized, poetic nationalism that young men are taught. The emotional core of the book is Gaunt and Ellwood's relationship. The tragedy of a love that is strong enough to endure the trenches but socially and legally taboo back home is masterfully captured by Winn. The book examines how these affluent, teenage boys with limited experience were given immediate military command over men's lives due to the strict British class system. School newspaper clippings that document the catastrophic erasure of an entire generation of boys in real time are scattered throughout the book.

I found the book engaging and especially appreciated the realistic historical details supporting the fictional narrative of love and loss.

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Intro to Revolution

The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 

by Rick Atkinson

The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Rick Atkinson's book is a masterwork of narrative military history. The American Revolution's mythology is stripped away, revealing a grim, chaotic, and profoundly human struggle. The book, which is the magnificent first volume of his Revolution Trilogy, covers the first 21 months of the war and shows how a small-scale colonial uprising turned into a worldwide struggle for independence. The author exhibits meticulously balanced viewpoints, in-depth archival research, and cinematic storytelling.

The story begins with a lengthy prologue set in June 1773, describing King George III inspecting the magnificent Royal Navy at Portsmouth, the pinnacle of British imperial confidence. After that, it moves quickly through the Boston political powder keg, the opening shots at Lexington and Concord, the horrific carnage at Bunker Hill, the catastrophic American invasion of Canada, and the exhausting battle for New York. In the winter of 1776–1777, the book reaches its dramatic climax, depicting the "Ten Crucial Days" when George Washington's desperate surprise actions at Trenton and Princeton alone saved the flagging American cause.

I was captivated by the details in this readable history. It moves quickly while maintaining an incredible level of detail.

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A Singular Tale

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 
by Vladimir Nabokov

“There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.”

― Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Vladimir Nabokov's first book written entirely in English is this novel, a masterful, multi-layered literary detective tale. The book, which was finished in Paris in 1938 and released in 1941, is a masterwork of metafiction that presents a convoluted, puzzle-like story.

The narrator of the tale, simply referred to as "V.," chooses to write his definitive biography after the premature death of his estranged half-brother, Sebastian Knight, a renowned English novelist. V. sets out to rectify the record after Sebastian's former secretary, Mr. Goodman, published a trashy, hurried biography. V. travels throughout Europe with just a few letters and pieces of Sebastian's personal documents. In order to piece together his brother's true identity, he speaks with friends, acquaintances, and former flames. But the investigation becomes a maze of falsehoods, dead ends, and misleading recollections.

Early on in V., Nabokov cautions readers that there are three aspects to truth: that shaped by the teller, reshaped by the listener, and concealed from both by the dead man. You can't fully believe what V. discovers. It functions as a preliminary postmodern experiment, demonstrating how hard it is to fully capture the essence of another person's soul. Sebastian Knight's own fictional novels contain complex, perplexing plot structures that are exactly reflected in V.'s search.

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Existential Isolation

Queer 

by William S. Burroughs

“Writers, like elephants, have long, vicious memories. There are things I wish I could forget.”

― William S. Burroughs

Queer is a harrowing, darkly comic, and raw exploration of unrequited desire and existential isolation. The manuscript was deemed too explicitly homosexual for the era and languished unpublished until 1985. Acting as a vital bridge in the author's bibliography, it captures the exact moment where Burroughs begins to transition away from straightforward, gritty realism into the hallucinated, avant-garde style that would define his masterpiece, Naked Lunch. The narrative is a circular seduction set against the backdrop of a corrupt and spectral 1950s Mexico City. The novel functions as a heavily autobiographical self-portrait.

The reader follows William Lee, Burroughs's recurring literary alter ego—who is stranded in a sordid expat community while suffering from acute heroin withdrawal.Lee becomes frantically obsessed with Eugene Allerton, a detached, younger American military veteran.Lee drags Allerton from bar to bar in a painfully circular attempt at seduction.To keep Allerton anchored to him, Lee concocts an expedition in search of yage, a mythical, telepathic, mind-altering vine.

Fiction can take you to places that are completely outside of your own personal experience. This novel from the pen of William S. Burroughs does just that with its litany of addicts in the thrall of eros. It is exciting and visceral in its realism. Through the back streets and nights filled with haunting images of men with sexual drives that determine their fates. Powerful and comic yet sad -- a brilliant narrative from a literary genius.

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Comic Suffering

Crome Yellow 

by Aldous Huxley

“When one individual comes into intimate contact with another, she—or he, of course, as the case may be—must almost inevitably receive or inflict suffering.” ― Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley's first novel, is a clever, plotless satire of high society in Britain after World War I. This "comedy of ideas" chronicles a summer house party at Crome, an estate populated by pretentious intellectuals, artists, and eccentrics. It provides an intriguing, pessimistic glimpse of the "Bright Young Things" negotiating the early 1920s disillusionment. Denis Stone, a naive and angsty young poet who comes to Crome House for a summer vacation, is the protagonist of the book. Denis is incredibly in love with Anne Wimbush, the hosts' niece, but he keeps stumbling because of his extreme self-consciousness and numerous romantic competitors. The book weaves together lengthy terrace walks, informal trysts, and in-depth philosophical debates among the guests rather than presenting a conventional narrative arc.
Among these visitors is the host, Henry Wimbush, who writes an enigmatic history of his own estate while ignoring his living guests. Mr. Scogan is a hyperrational, cynical philosopher who makes unsettling, pre-dystopian predictions. He is based on Bertrand Russell. In addition, Mr. Barbecue-Smith is a well-known hack writer who says he uses his "subconscious" to produce thousands of profitable, meaningless words every hour. These characters, especially Barbecue-Smith, were delightfully funny to me. This book is brief, to the point, and does not go overboard.

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Deepest Essence

Letters to a Young Poet 

by Rainer Maria Rilke

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet is a masterwork of introspective writing. The book, which was written between 1903 and 1908, is made up of ten letters that Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old military cadet, received asking for guidance on his poetry and life decisions. Rather than providing technical writing criticism, Rilke offers a profound manual on leading a genuine, creative life.

Loneliness is reclaimed by Rilke as a holy, useful place. He contends that a great deal of sometimes agonizing inner solitude is necessary for profound artistic creation and self-discovery. The letters promote accepting adversity rather than running away from it. Rilke famously suggests that instead of hurrying to find quick answers, we should love the questions themselves, like locked rooms. Love is presented as the ultimate test of maturity rather than as a straightforward emotional haven. According to Rilke, love is two solitudes that greet, border, and defend one another.

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Outsider with AIDS

Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story 

by Paul Monette

“The problem with secret crushes: in the absence of requital the love turns bitter.”

― Paul Monette, Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story

Paul Monette, who grew up in the 1950s, had a life that was somewhat similar to mine because I was also born in the 1950s. Additionally, I share with him the theme of exploration and introspection, which, if it doesn't inspire every boy to write his own autobiography, does inspire them to pursue imaginative lives and a passion for literature and the arts. Paul Monette's story is about the outsider, the gay man in the boy whose life leads to the age of AIDS and the loss that comes with it. It goes beyond his coming-of-age in the 1950s. Monette adds a truth to his story that only a genuinely intimate memoir can contain, from a small town to an Ivy League school to the life of a writer. The spirit and narrative of this book should be treasured because they are universal and compassionate. Seldom has a book so richly earned the recognition and honors it has received.

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Casebook of Love

The Pure and the Impure 

by Colette

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”

― Colette

First published in 1932, The Pure and the Impure (Le Pur et l'impur) is a captivating, non-linear masterpiece that the renowned French author Colette famously regarded as her best and most autobiographical work. This succinct but dense 184-page work functions as a profound "casebook of love," charting the sensual and psychological landscape of Paris's Belle Époque sexual underground, transcending the boundaries of fiction, memoir, and cultural critique.

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Thinking About the Planet

Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously about the Planet 

by Roger Scruton

“Top-down solutions have a tendency to confiscate problems from those whose problems they are.”

― Roger Scruton, Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet

Instead of framing environmentalism as a leftist monopoly, the book reframes it as a fundamental conservative obligation. Scruton contends that international treaties and top-down bureaucratic interventions are ineffective because they ignore local love and individual responsibility, which are the primary forces behind human conservation. His central idea is oikophilia. A few distinct pillars form the philosophical basis of Scruton's book: Oikophilia, which means "the love of home." According to Scruton, people preserve the environment because they cherish their immediate, physical surroundings rather than out of an abstract sense of global utilitarianism. He advocates for bottom-up stewardship, saying that small-scale institutions, friendships, and local civil associations are the most effective ways to manage conservation. Large NGOs, the UN, and international climate treaties are all criticized by Scruton in his critique of globalism as unaccountable bureaucracies that have far-reaching unintended consequences. Instead, he supports holding polluters directly accountable through the use of free-market networks, unambiguous property rights, and tort laws. This is a readable and sensible perspective on how conservatives can contribute to environmental preservation.

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Search for Nature

The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age 

by Hans Jonas

“Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.”  ― Hans Jonas


A risk-averse framework for the scientific era is introduced by Jonas. The worst-case scenario must take precedence over ideal projections when assessing existential risks such as genetic engineering or climate change. He contends that although we can afford to lose a bet on advancement, we cannot afford to lose a bet on human survival. Jonas bases his ethics on metaphysics, in contrast to many modern philosophers who separate ethics from objective reality. He claims that Being is intrinsically more valuable than Non-Being. Humanity has an unavoidable obligation to safeguard nature's intrinsic purpose for existing. The last sections criticize utopianism by focusing on both capitalist and Marxist ideas of unending technological advancement. Jonas argues for a politics of self-control and clearly illustrates how utopian visions of technological abundance directly result in ecological collapse.

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Mao and Birth of Modern China

A Force So Swift: 
Mao, Truman, and 
the Birth of Modern China, 1949 

by Kevin Peraino

The tumultuous months of 1949 are the sole focus of the book. President Harry S. Truman's administration struggled to handle a significant geopolitical change as Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government fell and withdrew to Taiwan. Peraino contends that decades of Cold War conflict, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars, were made possible by the choices, reluctance, and domestic political pressures of this one year.

Instead of providing a dry policy analysis, Peraino uses the personal perspectives of five key players to tell this intricate tale: Secretary of State Dean Acheson and President Harry S. Truman struggled to develop a coherent strategy in the face of strong domestic criticism for "losing" China. Mao Zedong: The cunning Communist leader who managed complicated relationships with Joseph Stalin while planning a huge revolution. Madame Chiang Kai-shek: The Nationalist leader's American-educated wife who vigorously but ineffectively pushed Washington for military and financial intervention. Congressman Walter Judd, a former missionary from Minnesota, spearheaded the strong domestic political opposition to Truman's detached stance. Overall I found this an insightful historical study.

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On an Island

Robinson Crusoe 

by Daniel Defoe

'It happen'd one Day about Noon going towards my Boat, I was exceeding surpriz'd with the Print of a Man's naked Foot on the Shore, which was very plain to be seen in the Sand: I stood like one Thunder-struck ...'

Robinson Crusoe is one of the most famous adventure stories ever written. The account of a sailor shipwrecked on a desert island for twenty-eight years, it is also a tale of mythic proportions, an allegory, and a spiritual autobiography. I remember being fascinated with the industrious nature of Crusoe and his ability to develop survival habits while stranded, alone at first, until encountering the man whom he would name "Friday." In more recent years I have been able to understand better the historical and literary context, but the wonder of Defoe's story has not diminished with the years. This has been a favorite of mine since I was a young boy. I have read it several times, and the Norton edition is the one I have most recently read.

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THe Heiress

Washington Square 

by Henry James

“Don’t underestimate the value of irony—it is extremely valuable.”

― Henry James, Washington Square

My first exposure to Henry James's art was in Washington Square. I bring this up because the first time I saw James in a dramatic setting was during a performance of "The Heiress" by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. In 1947, they had adapted James's short story. The play had gained popularity among high school students by the late 1960s, which is how I first came across it and, indirectly, Henry James. James first serialized his book in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1880. It is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The plot of the novel is based upon a true story told to James by his close friend, British actress Fanny Kemble.

The book is sometimes compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on family relationships. James was hardly a great admirer of Jane Austen, so he might not have regarded the comparison as flattering. In fact, James was not a great fan of Washington Square itself. He tried to read it over for inclusion in the New York edition of his fiction (1907–1909) but found that he could not, and the novel was not included. Other readers, though, have sufficiently enjoyed the book to make it one of the more popular works of the Jamesian canon. Its popularity may have been enhanced by the stage adaptation "The Heiress" by Ruth and Augustus Goetz.

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Berlin During War

Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945 

by Ian Buruma

This is an immersive, deeply human, and meticulously researched social history. Published in early 2026, the book explores how ordinary people navigated the moral catastrophe of the Third Reich. It derives its title from the wartime greeting Berliners used as the city collapsed into rubble: “Bleiben Sie übrig” (“Stay alive”). The book's core themes, structure, and critical approach are presented clearly. Instead of focusing on military strategy or top-tier Nazi commanders, Buruma chronicles the everyday survival of Berlin’s diverse wartime population. The book is organized year-by-year from 1939 to 1945. This structure tracks Berlin's transition from a thriving cultural redoubt to a battered, desperate hellscape. Buruma pieces together letters, diaries, memoirs, and rare interviews with aging survivors. He features a wide cast of characters: resistance fighters, swing dancers, movie stars, hiding Jews, and ordinary citizens. The narrative is anchored by the letters of Buruma’s own Dutch father, Leo Buruma. Leo was one of 400,000 foreign workers conscripted into forced labor in the German war economy. The result is an informative and well-written history of a specific time and place.

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The Supreme Court

Sarah Isgur's A Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court is a lighthearted, data-driven, and incredibly approachable defense of the U.S. Supreme Court that refutes popular media narratives regarding judicial partisanship. The book uses Isgur's vast experience as a lawyer, political operative, and legal analyst to make the case that the high court is the only branch of government operating in accordance with its original constitutional design, despite widespread misconceptions. 📊
The conventional media framing of a "6-3 partisan court" is undermined by Isgur. By pointing out that almost half of the cases in recent terms were decided unanimously, she uses statistics to demonstrate that sharp ideological divisions are uncommon. Isgur presents the "Y-Axis" spectrum, which stands for institutionalism. This determines whether a justice is a "chaos agent" ready to upend precedent or an institutionalist who values stability. The book blames an inactive Congress for high-profile legal disputes. It contends that the executive branch overreaches with executive orders as a result of lawmakers' failure to enact clear statutes, putting the Court in an untenable position of serving as a referee.
Isgur emphasizes that the Court's primary responsibility is rarely to decide whether a policy is "good." Instead, its role is figuring out which entity has the legal authority to make that decision.

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Internal Monologue

Jack 

by Marilynne Robinson

She said, "It's noise that you have to do it, and language that you do it, anyway." She said softly, "Maybe poetry.”

― Marilynne Robinson, Jack

The romance on the back cover of my paperback copy of this novel did not appear to me in any substantial way. I previously enjoyed Gilead, but I was disappointed in this rambling story. I did not find myself captivated, from the first pages, by the author's admirable prose.

Jack is profoundly aware of his capacity to destroy everything he touches. Because of his early exposure to scripture, he views divine knowledge as a burden rather than a source of comfort. His life turns into a torturous quest for a "theology of harmlessness"—a desperate, monastic attempt to withdraw so he can't hurt the people he cares about, especially Della. Jack faces the harsh realities of American racism head-on, in contrast to the comparatively remote, small-town theological discussions of Gilead and Home. Robinson painstakingly details how Jack and Della's world is compressed by societal prejudice, familial disapproval, and legal risk, transforming their relationship into a silent, agonizing act of defiance.

The novel avoids predictable, sweeping romantic tropes, choosing instead to present an intimate, slow-burning portrait of love existing under extreme duress. However, the narrative relies heavily on circular, self-obsessed internal monologues. I found it difficult to fully understand Della's motivations, as her thoughts are never directly unpacked, leaving her reasons for sacrificing so much for a "genteel hobo" somewhat mysterious.


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Tragic Moment

A Separate Peace 

by John Knowles

“What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.”

― John Knowles, A Separate Peace

This remains one of the most enduring and psychologically astute coming-of-age novels in American literature. The novel is set in 1942, during the dark days of World War II. The story takes place at the Devon School, a fictional elite New England boarding school based on Knowles’ alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy. The story is told from the perspective of an older, wiser Gene Forrester, looking back fifteen years later, and it is a harrowing exploration of identity, envy, and the tragic end to adolescent innocence.

It takes a close look at the complicated co-dependent relationship of two roommates who are polar opposites. Gene Forrester: The narrator. An intellectual, very insecure, introverted, and very neurotic person. Phineas (Finny): Gene’s best friend, a charismatic, fiercely athletic daredevil who glides through life with a natural charm and an innate purity of heart. This tension comes to a head during an idyllic summer term, when Gene becomes convinced that Finny’s effortless grace is a deliberate attempt to undermine Gene’s academic success. This toxic mixture of deep resentment and adoration leads to a momentary, impulsive act of betrayal.

As the boys come of age, they are faced with the worldwide violence of World War II. Knowles is a master at reflecting the large-scale warfare of the world in the small-scale, private wars of the human soul. The "separate peace" that the boys discover during that quiet summer is an illusion.


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The Enigma of Evil

Evil: 

A challenge to philosophy and theology 

by Paul Ricœur

This is a small but positively brilliant exegesis of the origin of evil. Ricoeur is eloquent and deep in his analysis based on a lecture given in Lausanne, Switzerland. Ricoeur's exploration of evil delves into its multifaceted nature, examining how it manifests in human experience and moral philosophy. He articulates the tension between the presence of evil and the quest for meaning, suggesting that understanding evil is essential to grasping the human condition.

Through his lens, Ricoeur emphasizes the importance of narrative in confronting evil, positing that storytelling allows individuals to process and make sense of their experiences with suffering and injustice. He invites readers to reflect on the ethical implications of evil, urging a deeper engagement with the moral dilemmas it presents.

Ultimately, Ricoeur's insights challenge us to confront the complexities of evil, encouraging a dialogue that transcends simplistic notions of good and evil and fostering a more profound understanding of our shared humanity.

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Art and Morals

The Shape of the Artistic Mind: 

 A Search for the Metaphysical Link Between Art and Morals in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas 

by Bradley T. Elliott OP








Is the ethical life an art form? Are the arts a form of virtue? This book explores how Thomas Aquinas responds to these questions by situating classical depictions of art and virtue within a rich account of God as creator. Helpful resources are provided for readers who want to further appreciate the role of the arts in the moral life.

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