TagLiterature
On the State of Men and Reading
Valuable advice to students: Learn how to read deeply
The Enduring Relevance of The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky opposed materialism and pointed readers to beauty and mystery
Declining Literacy Rates and What Happens Next
Are we being alarmist or is literacy really on a lifeline?
In a Materialistic Universe, Literature Doesn’t Make Sense
Language itself is theological. It’s an ascent
Chicago Sun-Times Used AI to Create Fake Summer Book List
The blind trust in AI continues
Dean Koontz on Writing and the Mystery of Life
Koontz believes every writer must have a metaphysic
Are We Experiencing a Universal Cognitive Decline?
People are increasingly having trouble reading, focusing, and solving complex problems.A new study shows that people are struggling more than ever to read, concentrate, and solve problems. The research comes just a few months after Oxford’s indicative decision to make “Brain Rot” its 2024 “Word of the Year.” Common experience itself lends itself to the conclusion that we are struggling to focus, that our attention is fragmented, and that simply thinking about one issue for more than a few seconds is difficult. The Financial Times reported that intelligence and reasoning capacities have declined since the early 2010s. While the COVID-19 pandemic is commonly blamed for the plummet and is indeed responsible for much of the cognitive decline, the downward trend preceded the crisis according to the study. John Burn-Murdoch reports: Read More ›
Re-enchanting the Secular West
More writers and intellectuals recognize the need for right-brain thinking
In a Changing Media Landscape, Keep the Novel
Novels are unique in their capacity to shed insight into the complexity of our world and human nature
What’s Happening to Literature?
Why aren't students reading anything anymore?
The Rings of Power Continues to Disappoint
This isn't Tolkien's world
Antidote to Screen Addiction? A Good Book
Sitting and reading in silence is a pleasure the modern world has forgotten
The Return of the Rings
Time to revisit Middle-earthAugust has been a big month for Tolkien fans. Season 2 of Amazon’s The Rings of Power is slated to premiere on Thursday, August 29th, two years after the first season (with its billion-dollar budget) dropped and garnered mixed reviews. You can read my own two cents on The Rings of Power here and here. The question a lots of Tolkien fans are probably asking now is whether the show can recover from a slow start, some poor character development and cliche dialogue, and some basic plot issues that made many of us wish more time was invested on the story than the stratospheric budget. We’ll see. Here’s the trailer for Season 2: The Rings of Power isn’t the only Read More ›
Japanese Novelist Who Won Prestigious Literary Award Unabashedly Used ChatGPT
Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation
Reading in the Digital Age
Writer Joseph Epstein argues compellingly on behalf of the novel.
Ancient Greek Philosophy and Modern Blockbuster Graphics
The amazing computer-generated effects you see in almost every blockbuster today are only possible thanks to ideas proposed over 2300 years ago.
ChatGPT: The Perfect Gadget for a Culture in Decline?
ChatGPT is an impersonal machine and can't generate meaningDr. Jeffrey Bilbro, professor of English at Grove City College and an editor at The Front Porch Republic, wrote an article for Plough on what he regards as the primary weakness of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Bilbro comes to the issue from a literary background, which means he values the human element in language as a mode of communication. Literature is a “conversation,” requiring sentient minds. He sees ChatGPT as a soulless mechanism that will atrophy our ability to write and diminish our appreciation for good writing. Bilbro writes, LLMs are a technology suited to a decadent culture, one that chases easy profits rather than tackles the real challenges we face. It’s easier to make money rearranging words Read More ›
Math, Mind, and Matter
The surprising similarities between mathematics and literatureLast October, legendary American author Cormac McCarthy, who wrote Blood Meridian and The Road, released a pair of interconnected novels called The Passenger and Stella Maris. The books arrived after a sixteen-year silence from the desk of McCarthy. The books deal, per usual, with themes of mortality, fate, and the “God question,” and are predictably lyrical, vivid, and dark. But McCarthy plows new ground in these sibling novels. The books are about mathematicians. It’s fiction about math. The story revolves around the complex relationship between a brother and sister: Bobby and Alicia Western. Bobby is a deep-sea diver with some history in the field of mathematics, while Alicia is a once-in-a-generation math prodigy. Not Estranged, but Akin After reading these books myself, I marveled at McCarthy’s ability to Read More ›
Novelist Haruki Murakami: Writing Involves Trust
Writing powerful literature is a human endeavor written for a human audienceI just finished a book by the renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami called Novelist as a Vocation. Murakami is the author of 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, and Kafka on the Shore, among many others. As a young novelist myself, I wanted to learn a professional’s thoughts on the trade and also get a sense of his philosophy of writing, which in the age of AI, feels increasingly valuable. Most of the book was composed during or before 2015 but was just published last year, and is basically a compendium of essays on the novel-writing process, how Murakami got started, and the broader literary landscape. Connecting With Readers Murakami’s thoughts on his readership and audience particularly stood out to me. He confesses Read More ›