Honeysuckle Walks
a literature & philosophy blog
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Jane Austen and the era of virtue—and vice
At the heart of every Jane Austen novel lies a sharp critique of social values. This isn’t surprising…
Timeless quotes from Steppenwolf
In an author’s note for the 1961 edition of Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse described the novel as his most “violently misunderstood” work…
The tortured poet
The trope of the “tortured poet” is intriguing—it conveys the idea that meaningful art requires or is enhanced by anguish, torment…
Sin, Sirens, and the irresistible allure of sound
“Square in your ship’s path are Sirens, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by; woe to the innocent who hears that sound!”
Imagination, empathy, and John Keats’ negative capability
John Keats was an English Romantic poet who’s best known for his odes, like “Ode to a Nightingale.” Despite a short life…
The happiness machine and accepting life as it is
In 1957, Ray Bradbury published a captivating short story called “The Happiness Machine,” which takes us back to a time of…
The interconnectedness of the world and time
“They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways […] All of them together was the stream of events…”
Old lessons on learning and wisdom (Siddhartha Part I)
Siddhartha is a beautifully written spiritual novel by Hermann Hesse about a Nepalese man's journey of self-discovery and search for…
A book and a beverage: Anthem and a layered latte
“I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.” - Ayn Rand
Book review: The Fountainhead
The Fountainhead (published in 1943) by Ayn Rand tells the story of Howard Roark, a talented and hardworking architect with strong convictions…
Fiction’s inability to reinvent the past
“Is it possible to make the experience and journey of faith fresh, as new and as linguistically unencumbered as it was to early…”
What novelists should strive for (according to Ayn Rand)
“It was Aristotle who said that fiction is of greater philosophical importance than history, because history represents things only…”