1.
A wise friend of mine rejects the idea of there being such a thing, because it suggests that novels are like horses and the race makes assessment into a simple matter of comparison in a single field of endeavour.
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Is Wuthering Heights the Best Novel Ever Written?
Posted in Observation, Reading with tags book-review, books, Emily Bronte, gothic, gothic novel, In Search of Lost Time, literature, Pyramids, Robert McKee, Taj Mahal, War and Peace, Wuthering Heights on March 22, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle
The Monk
Posted in Observation, Reading with tags Ambrosio, Angel Clare, books, Breasts, Fiction, Matilda, Matthew Lewis, poetry, short-story, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Monk, Thomas Hardy, writing on February 25, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
Certainly, this is high drama, and skilfully rendered by Mr Lewis. I have not chosen to recount it here for that reason, however. I reproduce it because the breast, probably the only breast Ambrosio has encountered – aside from his mother’s when he was an infant – appears to him as an enigma of overwhelming power.
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The Monk
Posted in Observation, Reading with tags book-review, book-reviews, books, Fiction, Gothic literature, literature, Matthew Lewis, The Monk on February 9, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
A very literate friend of mine once described The Monk as the most boring book ever forced upon him by an educational institution. Any book that comes to take up that kind of notoriety is often contingent on timing: my friend was 19 when he encountered The Monk, and it may have become his central focus of regret in signing up to study Gothic literature.
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‘Keyboard Warrior’: The Loathsome Andrew Tate
Posted in fighting, Kickboxing, Observation, violence against women with tags Andrew Tate, axe kick, BBC News, Gokhan Saki, Golden Glory, Greta Thunberg, human trafficking, International Kickboxer Magazine, John Wayne Parr, Journalism, Kickboxing, misogynist, Nathan Corbett, Peter Graham, Semmy Schilt on November 11, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
I first became aware of Andrew Tate during a particularly irritating conversation with a friend of mine who knows absolutely nothing whatsoever about kickboxing, beyond the fact that I’m involved with it.
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‘The Men Who Came Too Late and Stayed Too Long.’
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Bryan Dorries, David Fincher, Pauline Kael, Peckinpah, Roger Ebert, The Wild Bunch on March 25, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
What I like about Peckinpah is that you never know what you’re going to get. You’re certainly not there to be ‘entertained’. Like David Fincher says, it’s going to leave a scar.
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‘The Men Who Came Too Late and Stayed Too Long.’
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Apocalypse, Billie Eilish, COVID, hip replacement, Ocean Eyes, Point Break, Sam Peckinpah, Straw Dogs, Surgery, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Wild Bunch on March 19, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
Surgery is a major life event. I had a hip replacement, which means full derailment; it’s a paradigm shift quite unlike any other. And most of the time, paradigm shifts find you stranded in a world that’s changed and requires that you develop new skills in order to cope. In my case, I return to the world with a certain ability that I had lost, namely, the ability to walk and stand square and strong, without pain.
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Point Break: Redux
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Bodhi, Bromance, Dirty Harry, Dirty Harry Callaghan, Ex=presidents, High Noon, John Pilger, Johnny Utah, Kathryn Bigelow, Point Break, Ronald Reagan, Simone De Beauvoir, The Hurt Locker, The Wild Bunch, Will Kane on February 18, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
Once he discovers his newfound friends and mentor are actually the ex-presidents, Johnny draws his line. During a botched stakeout shortly after, Utah reveals his identity when he pursues them in an attempt to capture.
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Point Break: Redux
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags bank robbery, Daniel San, ex-presidents, FBI, Johnny Utah, Keanu Reeves, Mr Miyagi, Patrick Swayze, Point Break, surfing, The Karate Kid on February 3, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
I had very little memory of the film when I switched it on to pass a recent Saturday evening, and was concerned that watching an ‘old’ film from my teenaged years had become a recreational activity worthy of my time.
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‘Story is Such a Lie.’
Posted in Observation, Real Men with tags C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, James Joyce, Luis Bunuel, Mr Deasey, Rodney Hall, Ulysses on January 20, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
Rodney Hall, frequent guest of this blog, began a spiel on this topic when last we met. This commentary on the nature of art is so fundamental and so important, it needs to be posted somewhere: once again, I exhorted him to start his own blog and yet again, he refused. For that reason, I present his ideas here, rather than attempt to pass them off as my own.
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Meditation Killed My Motivation
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading, Real Men, Statement of intention with tags Alain De Botton, Blade Runner, Buddha, How Proust Can Change Your Life, In Search of Lost Time, Luke David, Marcus Aurelius, Nietzsche, Osho, Proust, Roy Batty, Scott Moncrieff, Tim Ferriss on December 1, 2022 by Jarrod Boyle
Tim Ferriss once said that he had initially avoided meditation for fear it would bliss him out and diminish his drive. In my case, I fear that it’s true.
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Theme Park at its Darkest 