Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

Irish literature in the early 20th century was practically defined by James Joyce. His legacy, however, is not confined to giving voice to a nation on the verge of erupting into independence but his revolution was literary and largely religious as well. His debut novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , was rooted in the classical tradition right down to the protagonist’s last name, Dedalus, a reference to the Greek hero Daedalus, while dismantling literary conventions as thoroughly as the role of the Catholic Church in Irish identity. For Joyce this crisis of faith began in 1903 on his mother’s death bed. Shortly after graduating from University College in Dublin, Joyce moved to Paris to study medicine but returned upon hearing of his mother’s imminent death. Joyce and his younger brother Stanislaus tended to their mother dutifully but it was at this moment where Joyce’s stance against the Church became established, refusing to take confession or pray. As Joyce’s biographer H...

Throughout the last thirty years Colombia has done a remarkable job shedding itself from the infamous legacy of Pablo Escobar. I have visited twice and always felt safe. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a friendlier more welcoming lot than the Colombian people. But the most damning aspect of Escobar’s legacy has almost nothing to do with cocaine or mass murders. No, what has proven the most difficult remnant of Escobar’s reign is hippos. And while the terror of the Medellin Cartel has dissipated the ecological impact of the drug lord’s exotic pets remains a problem to both locals and the ecosystem. It is possible to see the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar as a tragedy of Greek proportions. A poor child from Rionegro left to learn the ways of the streets in the neighboring city of Medellin grows up to be one of the most powerful drug kingpins in the world building a palace of luxury (although, garish in style, quite frankly) fitting a man of both brutal violence and a cult of ad...