the novel is just a modern literary form of storytelling / we've been telling stories since we could speak practically / they have always been about the fantastic the amazing and told in a way that gave people guidance and inspiration / that's what a story is :: conflict resolution / character development / out and back - the hero's journey
I wonder if the world needs or wants more Chuck Palahniuks and Joan Didions and/or fewer Margaret Atwoods and George Orwells?
Nihilism is a legitimate and time tested art form, but doesn't sell as well as the didactic moral narrative. Moral nihilism is edgy, but closer to many of the ugly truths that we all must live with..
Moral nihilism is like a pornographic snapshot into the forbidden aspects of our scary and problematic postmodern Zeitgeist...to be shared salaciously under the table, but never to be seen openly in polite company because even the mere discussion of it is seen as an Act of Rebellion against oppressive and questionable societal mores.
Art and Censure are the Manichaean sweet and sour that most literary fiction critics love to debate. Oft-times you get is a cult following like JD Salinger's, or a dubious one like Ayn Rand's.
Better to say you can write all the moralisms you want, but history will read them for what they are, for intent and against. Books outlive their moralism or they’re forgotten.
Reading her paragraph after commenting, she sounds like Franzen but more fucked up and in denial. Decadents are always conflicted. Art for poisoned times. And of course she’s a moralist.
the novel is just a modern literary form of storytelling / we've been telling stories since we could speak practically / they have always been about the fantastic the amazing and told in a way that gave people guidance and inspiration / that's what a story is :: conflict resolution / character development / out and back - the hero's journey
I wonder if the world needs or wants more Chuck Palahniuks and Joan Didions and/or fewer Margaret Atwoods and George Orwells?
Nihilism is a legitimate and time tested art form, but doesn't sell as well as the didactic moral narrative. Moral nihilism is edgy, but closer to many of the ugly truths that we all must live with..
Moral nihilism is like a pornographic snapshot into the forbidden aspects of our scary and problematic postmodern Zeitgeist...to be shared salaciously under the table, but never to be seen openly in polite company because even the mere discussion of it is seen as an Act of Rebellion against oppressive and questionable societal mores.
Art and Censure are the Manichaean sweet and sour that most literary fiction critics love to debate. Oft-times you get is a cult following like JD Salinger's, or a dubious one like Ayn Rand's.
https://tumbleweedwords.substack.com/
Good work Jeet!
Description is not prescription. Moralists are hypocrites. Give me honesty. Milton was of the Devil’s party without knowing it. And yet you read him.
Better to say you can write all the moralisms you want, but history will read them for what they are, for intent and against. Books outlive their moralism or they’re forgotten.
https://tumbleweedwords.substack.com/
Reading her paragraph after commenting, she sounds like Franzen but more fucked up and in denial. Decadents are always conflicted. Art for poisoned times. And of course she’s a moralist.