The Pleasure of Seeing Others Brought Down “If we had no faults, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing them in others,” La Rochefoucauld writes in one of his maxims. As so often with him, the sting is hidden in a word that is easy to pass over. In this case, that word…

I begin this text with the relatively clear awareness that in writing it, I am committing a sort of ultimate version of that original philosophical sin – contradictio in adjecto, a contradiction in terms. Eliteness, as I feel it – and as I will try to present it below – consists…

“Hello…” Even in this most neutral of phrases, her voice somehow managed to sound drawn out and inviting – or openly seductive, depending on the interpreter’s imagination. For a moment, he considered telling her what he had just been doing five minutes ago with the thought of…

It begins in a drowsy provincial town — Prespan, somewhere deep in 1980s Bulgaria — at a moment when history quietly forgets its manners. The so-called “Revival Process” is in full swing, and neighbour turns against neighbour in a fog of fear, confusion, and officially…