Literary Lounge

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who knows that sometimes literature doesn’t rescue you—it just sits beside your sorrow with quiet understanding) There are books you read. And then there are books that read you back, like a tailor measuring you for a suit you’ll never grow out of. Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance is one such […]

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who firmly believes that if hope were edible, the Joads still would’ve gone hungry) There are road trips that start with playlists and picnic baskets. And then there’s the Joad family’s journey to California—a desperate, dusty pilgrimage across a broken America that doesn’t know whether it’s collapsing or just rearranging the

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who has always suspected that Edna Pontellier’s true sin was having a soul before it was socially scheduled) It begins on a porch. It ends in the sea. And somewhere between parasols, piano music, and polite dinner parties, Edna Pontellier realizes what every well-bred Victorian woman was trained not to say

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who firmly believes Charles Dickens invented the term “it’s complicated” long before modern romance and plotlines did) If you’ve ever wished life came with more eccentric characters, more dramatic coincidences, and more men with tragic backstories and suspicious facial hair—look no further than the pen of Charles Dickens, the man who

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who’s fairly certain Orwell is haunting our routers in silent judgment) In the grand year of 1948, a man named George Orwell sat down to write a book not because he was paranoid, but because the world wasn’t paranoid enough. He switched the last two digits of the year and gifted

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who still wants to ask Jane Eyre, “Out of all the men in that mansion… him?”) Once upon a moody English morning, a small, plain orphan named Jane Eyre decided she would not, under any circumstances, be silent, submissive, or spiritually gaslit by the patriarchy. And thus, Charlotte Brontë’s legendary novel

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who firmly believes therapy might’ve saved the Yorkshire moors a lot of emotional storm damage) Some love stories bloom in gardens. Others burn in bonfires. And then there’s Wuthering Heights—a romance so fierce it cracks windows, howls through chimneys, and demands to be resurrected at midnight with a blood oath and

By The Literary Scholar(Who believes April is still cruel, just with faster Wi-Fi.) Let’s begin with a dangerous question: Is T.S. Eliot still relevant?This is the kind of question that either sparks a spirited literary debate or gets you politely escorted out of a graduate seminar. But ask it we must—because in a world that

When the Thirst for Knowledge Burns the Soul that Seeks ItBy ABS, The Literary Scholar If Renaissance theatre had a warning label, Doctor Faustus would come with the words:“May cause damnation, disillusionment, and dark laughter. Handle with hubris.” Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is not just the story of a man who sells his soul to

By ABS, The Literary Scholar(Who firmly believes that if guilt had a voice, it would quote Shakespeare with blood on its hands) Once Upon a Gory Prophecy Let us begin, as all good tragedies do, in a storm. Thunder crashes. Lightning flashes. And somewhere on a war-torn heath in medieval Scotland, three witches huddle like