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September 17, 2016

Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, And First World Problems

An awful lot of classic literature is concerned with “first world problems.” To illustrate this point, I’ve reduced most Jane Austen novels to a single meme: I have also simmered Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” down to this pungent little sauce: If you have read any of the works in question, hopefully something in […]

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Canterbury Tales: “Longen for Pilgrimages”

Centuries before Bunyan’s Pilgrim was trekking towards the Celestial City, Chaucer’s motley crew were wending their way to Canterbury. Both stories draw on a premonition that’s as old as Abraham and as fresh as Kerouac—an intimation, undying through the ages, that life is a journey towards, or in search of, the holy. Perhaps no story

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