Miranda's Closely Read Blog

Freud writes with a masterful degree of specificity. However much he deals with vague abstractions, he never fails at communicating meaning....

High, middle, and low all are utilized in turn to create the highly manipulative effect that Fredrick Douglass is going for. The first sente...

“On my right hand there were lines of fishing-stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its...

Holmes and Steyn write in unsurprising ways for their subject matter. The tactics they use are obvious, and examination of these may show th...

On Genre in Fiction There is a certain air of distaste among a segment of the reading population for genre fiction. Especially for those typ...

“Paste” is a story about the things we want to believe set against the things that are shown to be true, but that we do not want to acknowle...

Reading Montaigne is a lot of fun. He is a very smart man, and yet, he does not belabor his intelligence as something peculiar to him. I exp...