Literature

Beware the Architects of Illusion 1
- Literature, Culture, Featured
- April 5, 2024
“In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” So goes the old saying. In Intellectual Takeout contributor Walker Larson’s fantasy novel Hologram, however, Aaron Castillian becomes a king of sorts precisely because he is blind, at least in a particular way. After his people’s enemy, the Voturans, devastate Aaron’s hometown and kill
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The Best Writer You’ve Never Heard Of (And His Message for Modern Readers)3
- Literature, Culture, Featured
- April 4, 2024
Of the writers you’ve never heard of, George Gissing may be the best. His prose is beautiful, and his plotlines are exquisitely painful. But beyond the sheer artistry of his writing, he has much to teach the modern reader, both in his writing and through the tragedy of his life. Gissing’s academic career began with
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Fire From the Gods: Oppenheimer as a Greek Tragic Hero 2
- Entertainment, History, Literature, Science
- March 27, 2024
Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” These chilling words appear in the opening title sequence of Christopher Nolan’s newest film, Oppenheimer, about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Nolan’s film catalogues Oppenheimer’s education and early
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Wendell Berry: What We Lose When Small-Town America Collapses (And How to Recover It)4
- Culture, Literature
- March 26, 2024
What does America risk losing with the loss of small, rural communities? Writer and farmer Wendell Berry has spent much of his writing career contemplating this question. One way he has approached it is through his novels and short stories, and his fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, typifies all that is best about small-town
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‘The Abolition of Man’: How C.S. Lewis’ Prophecy Is Being Fulfilled 1
- Culture, Featured, Literature
- March 14, 2024
For years now, our culture has waged war over the question of what it means to be a man. To that battlefield, some online pundits have brought the heavy artillery of C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book, The Abolition of Man: “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor
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The Secret Purpose of Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’2
- Philosophy, Featured, History, Literature
- March 13, 2024
The most common view today of 15th-century Florentine philosopher-statesman Niccolò Machiavelli is that he was evil. Dubbed the founder of modern political philosophy, his evil reputation comes from his most famous work, The Prince, which openly endorses treachery, deceit, and backstabbing as political tactics. So, it’s no wonder that most people’s idea of Machiavelli is
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