In Defense of Peter Petrawicki; or, Hank Green’s Appallingly Repugnant Trainwreck
By Jason Garshfield Whatever my criticisms of John Green, at least he is soulful, earnest, and respectful of the craft of writing. The same cannot be said of John’s brother, Hank Green, whose debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, is an odious work of propaganda through and through. Now, before I go on, it is…
Dragons All the Way Down: How John Green’s Novels Hurt Young People
By Jason Garshfield There is a quote, from G.K. Chesterton, commonly rendered as, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” The actual quote is somewhat longer, but amounts to the same: “Fairy tales do not give the child…
Don’t Cancel ‘Gone with the Wind.’ Watch It Carefully Instead.
By Jason Garshfield In an era in which The Cat in the Hat can be deemed racist, it was inevitable that the cancel mobs would come for the most politically incorrect story of all: Gone with the Wind. Sure enough, the film was removed from HBO Max last summer; it was eventually replaced, with a…
The Battleground of Beauty
By Thomas, Letters From The Ruins BEAUTY IS A BATTLEGROUND in the 21st Century. It’s the central figure in a whole range of debates from modern art to our own bodies. Is beauty in the eye of the beholder, or does it even exist? Or, we might imagine an absolute principle which neatly categorises the…
ARTS EDITOR: The Necessity of Art During Quarantine
By Abbey Umali When we first entered quarantine in March, no one expected it to last this long. Because of the lockdown, millions of people have lost their jobs, many businesses will never reopen, children have missed out on socialization that is crucial for their development, and the already-high rates of depression and suicide have…