I. I have written about Thomas Bernhard before. However, writing about him now feels different, not only from the time a decade or so ago… — I. I have written about Thomas Bernhard before. However, writing about him now feels different, not only from the time a decade or so ago when I first discovered his work, but even from the prevailing mood of a couple of years back. Partly fuelled by reissues on both sides of…

Rebecca Comay’s Mourning Sickness — Rebecca Comay’s Mourning Sickness Time and history remain two of the most fundamental problems for philosophy. The coalescence in the last two centuries of philosophy and history into a philosophy of history remains a fundamental force in European thought. Some of the most important work in this field in recent…

On Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ — On Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ This, admittedly, is a very silly title for an article but then Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s newest ‘high concept’ thriller, is a very silly film. This is not how it has been presented of course: in fact Tenet has traded on its complexity (always a questionable criterion…

All that money, the money is the motive — The Weeknd — All that money, the money is the motive — The Weeknd More is said about the contemporary experience of capitalism in the first five minutes of Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems than in most of the films about the 2008 Wall Street crash combined. After an opening scene at…

Let us begin at the end. The horse-dealer Michael Kohlhaas is about to be put to death following a stubborn and unending crusade for… — Let us begin at the end. The horse-dealer Michael Kohlhaas is about to be put to death following a stubborn and unending crusade for justice stemming from the illegal confiscation and mistreatment of two of his horses by Junker Wenzel von Tronka. This crusade, which has seen Kohlhaas become leader…

250 of my favourite films, put together just because. I have attempted to limit the list to one film per director, except in the cases… — 250 of my favourite films, put together just because. I have attempted to limit the list to one film per director, except in the cases where that proved impossible. …

The works of Hiromi Kawakami exude a strange and quiet light. This lightness is not mere simplicity or economy (though they are certainly… — The works of Hiromi Kawakami exude a strange and delicate light. This lightness, beyond any stylistic simplicity or lexical economy, stems partially from the presence of a kind of liquescent narrative terrain, as though each of her novels were unfolding at a soft point on the horizon where the distinctions…

‘we say he is, then suddenly he was, this terrible was’ — The Loser — ‘we say he is, then suddenly he was, this terrible was’ — The Loser I first read Thomas Bernhard sometime in 2011 when M., a colleague of mine who I did not know very well at the time but is now one of my very closest friends, gave me a…

Striving for Gentleness. — When a vigorous nature has not an inclination towards cruelty, and is not always preoccupied with itself, it… — Striving for Gentleness. — When a vigorous nature has not an inclination towards cruelty, and is not always preoccupied with itself, it involuntarily strives after gentleness — this is its distinctive characteristic. — Nietzsche, Daybreak [238] In many ways the notion of advocating for the radical nature of gentleness, of…