by Peter Scotchmer | Apr 7, 2026 | Essays
Starting in April 2026, The Ironist is starting a running monthly series of articles on the English language written by our very own contributor Peter Scotchmer, a retired English teacher. Polonius: ‘What is the matter you read, my lord?’ Hamlet: ‘Words, words,...
by Aashisha Chakraborty | Mar 31, 2026 | Essays
Talking objects, messy love, art, philosophy, and global conflict. All in one book. “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.” Over time I have come to believe that the higher the element of fantasy in a book, the more serious it often...
by Peter Scotchmer | Mar 24, 2026 | Essays
Peter Scotchmer writes about the enduring lure of utopia and why humanity’s attempts to build perfect societies so often end in dystopia. I will not walk with your progressive apes, Erect and sapient. Before them gapes The dark abyss to which their progress...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Mar 10, 2026 | Essays
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of a finished piece must be in want of a community. How many of us have agonized over our drafts restlessly and endlessly, wondering who to read it to and what to do with it? We, at the Irony Club,...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Mar 3, 2026 | Essays
“The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago I was in Budapest when I heard about the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. One of the worst things about this horror is how quickly it...
by Noah Mullins | Feb 24, 2026 | Essays
The inconvenient Liberalism of a “traditional” classic “I’ve often wondered why you don’t return to America.” When the French police chief says this to Rick, we learn he’s an exile. We never learn why, but we get hints of communist leanings. “You ran guns...