How an awful lot of ‘literature’ is the very antithesis of life












“Most novels’ explorations of human behavior still owe far more to Freudian psychology than they do to cognitive science and DNA. Most novels treat setting as if where people now live matters as much to us as it did to Balzac. Most novels frame their key moments as a series of filmable moments straight out of Hitchcock. And above all, the tidy coherence of most novels — highly praised ones in particular — implies a belief in an orchestrating deity, or at least a purposeful meaning to existence that the author is unlikely to possess, and belies the chaos and entropy that surround and inhabit and overwhelm us.”

David Shields: How Literature Saved My Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)

Kommentit (2)
  1. Mika Kukkonen
    6.2.2013, 18:30

    Nathalie Sarraute revisited.

  2. Osuvia huomioita, etenkin tuo kohta freudilaisesta ihmiskuvasta. Shields varmasti pitäisi Neuromaanista.

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