Tag Archives: stories

Short Story: “The Temptation of Saint Irony”

It’s the year of your Lord, 1437; it’s summer; the sun is at high noon, and you’re in the countryside outside Genoa. A tonsured monk in a black robe approaches you, reaching for the hem of your garment. You step … Continue reading

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A Just So Darwinian Story: How Giraffes Came To Be The Way They Are

Once upon a time, giraffes had shorter necks. They could eat leaves off medium and low-lying tree branches, but they had to compete for those leaves with elephants, and this caused the giraffes to be frustrated and hungry a lot of the time.  There was … Continue reading

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Symbols, Myths, Metaphors, and Stories: Are Atheists More (or Less) Deluded By These Things Than Theists?

For both the atheist and the theist, reality is anything but fulfilling. The way things are, without you doing anything about them, has always been a problem, for reality, unstoried, is just one damn meaningless thing after another. And often unpleasant. It’s … Continue reading

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Close Literary Reading 101: Some Terms and Ideas for Thinking about Characters

I thought it might be fun (at least for me) to lay out, in a series of short blog posts, some of the basic terms and ideas that I present to my students when talking about the “close reading” of literary texts. … Continue reading

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What’s Literature Good For?

Sometimes people ask, “What’s the value of literature—of reading poems, stories, and plays? In other words, why might one go to literature for sustenance or reflection, as opposed to something else?” One of the reasons a person might “go to literature” is akin … Continue reading

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John Updike’s Final Collection of Short Stories, “My Father’s Tears”, Has Just Been Published

Stefan Beck, who blogs at The New Criterion website, likes John Updike’s final collection of short stories (which just came out). Money quote: The posthumous collection My Father’s Tears reminds us of one wonderful thing about Updike: Practically any example … Continue reading

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Great Short Story Beginnings Watch: Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

Damn, this is some good writing! I’m hooked from the get-go. And I like the description of the mother with the “green head-kerchief.” The beginning of Flannery O’Connor’s classic, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”: The grandmother didn’t want to … Continue reading

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