Where readers of Murdoch can begin a new novel with a quiet confidence, opening a Burgess book is an exercise in anxiety: what the devil is he up to this time?
We - as readers or writers, tellers or listeners - understand each other, we share knowledge of the structures of our myths, we comprehend the logic of symbols, largely because we have access to the s...
There is, in fact, no form of dysfunctional family or no personal disintegration of character for which there is not a Greek or Roman model.
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden
So what did you think the devil would look like? If he were red with a tail, horns, and cloven hooves, any fool could say no.
Characters as rich and complex as those we believe ourselves to be
We accept fictions as fictions, as things that might be true in their world, if not quite in ours.
In Eudora Welty’s masterful story Why I Live at the P.O. (1941), the narrator is engaged in a sibling rivalry with her younger sister, who has come home after leaving under suspicious if not actually...
If to get to the finish line the hero must walk over a sea of bodies, then so be it. He can die at said line, but he's got to get there.
History is story, too.
His argument runs like this: there is no goodness without free will. Without the ability to freely choose-or reject-the good, an individual possesses no control over his own soul, and without that con...
Going After Cacciato
Everywhere you look, the ground is already camped on. So you sigh and pitch your tent where you can, knowing someone else has been there before.
Every reader’s experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to differing degrees, and those differences will cause certain features of the text to be...
Every novel is brand-new. It’s never been written before in the history of the world. At the same time, it’s merely the latest in a long line of narratives—not just novels, but narratives generally—si...
Education is mostly about institutions and getting tickets stamped; learning is what we do for ourselves. When we're lucky, they go together. If I had to choose, I'd take learning.
Don't wait for writers to be dead to be read; the living ones can use the money.
Don't read with your eyes.
Compelled belief is no belief at all.
We have to bring our imaginations to bear on a story if we are to see all it's possibilitiess; otherwise it's just about somebody who did something. Whatever we take away from stories in the way of si...
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