It looks like all the big publications are posting their “most popular of 2018” lists. That’s easy enough to do, so I thought I would look back at the logs and let you know what people have been reading here. No surprise, the one article that consistently gets the most love here is:
1. Give a Man a Mask and He’ll Tell You the Truth?
This post has been viewed almost 6,000 times this year. I can’t really take credit for this. I’m pretty sure its perennial popularity is due to people googling the famous Oscar Wilde quote. But it seems to be the primary draw to my blog, and has been for a while.
2. Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves
People google this Oscar Wilde phrase about half as often. This post had about 3,000 hits in 2018.
3. “A Destructive Love Affair” Empathy for Lord Alfred Douglas
This six-year-old post has been viewed more than 1,000 times this year. I haven’t looked at it in a while. It was written quite early on in my research of Douglas and Ross. I’ve written a lot since then, but there is something about a popular post that is self-sustaining. The more people look at it, the higher it goes in the search engine rankings, and the more people look at it.
4. The Invisible Famine in the Parable of the Prodigal Son
I write about things other than Oscar Wilde. This post was consistently my top click until the Wilde posts took over. It discusses the fact that when westerners, Americans in particular, hear the story of the Prodigal Son they miss the fact that there was a famine in it. I found this to be an excellent illustration of the way we are blind to pains we have not experienced and pondered how this might affect our politics when a nation of non-millionaires is governed by multi-millionaires.
5. The Best of Friends to Oscar Wilde
Rounding out the top five. This one surprised me a bit. Who knew almost 400 people have looked at this one. I shared a dedication Robert Ross wrote in a copy of one of his books that suggests he had some ambivalence in his role as “The Best of Friends to Oscar Wilde.”
So there you have it. The big top 5. I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane as much as I was lazy to do this instead of writing something new.
Story and Self 