Archive for Charles Dickens

‘Story is Such a Lie.’

Posted in Observation, Real Men with tags , , , , , , 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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Thomas Hardy: Character is Fate in ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’

Posted in Fiction, Observation, Reading with tags , , , , , , , , on May 31, 2022 by Jarrod Boyle

‘Character is fate, said Novalis, and Farfrae’s character was just the reverse of Henchard’s, who might not be inaptly described as Faust has been described – as a vehement gloomy being who had quitted the ways of vulgar men without light to guide him on a better way.’

Thomas Hardy,

The Mayor of Casterbridge,

P. 131

While reading The Mayor of Casterbridge this morning, I saw something that I did not like: myself.

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Desperate Romantic: My Life as a Stalker (A Lamentably True Story)

Posted in Acts of devotion, Love letters, Observation, Real Men with tags , , , , , , , on November 26, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle

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6: Calm and Huge, Like a River of Violence

This kind of obsessive love is often depicted as torture. Continue reading

The Dark Side of Unconditional Love

Posted in Observation, Reading with tags , , , on August 12, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle

Bill-sikes

It is said that unconditional love is the kind of love we should aspire to; it’s the state of loving in which you love someone, regardless of whether they love you in return, or even treat you well. It is to achieve a state of selflessness as a result of your feelings.

It has occurred to me that this is not always a good thing. Continue reading

Why the Left is Being Left Behind

Posted in Film, Observation with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 7, 2012 by Jarrod Boyle

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You can’t take other people’s opinions too seriously. Continue reading

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