Literature Is Not a Religion | The Millions
Literature is not an ideology; it is not a religion. It is something grander, more human and humane. For literature asks nothing of you. It doesn’t tell you how to live or who to love. It doesn’t tell you that you aren’t good enough or that you were born wrong. It doesn’t promise punishment for lack of adherence, and it doesn’t condemn those who don’t follow it. And the best part? Literature acknowledges its fiction, its artifice, its ultimate inability to express the capital-T Truth.
Month: November 2014
If There’s Any Truth in a Northbound Train by Ryan Werner | PANK
Leyner in My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist relished in pointing to the fabricated nature of fiction. Werner, though, has a different intention: his stories portray a particular group of young people in a particular part of the Midwest in a particular age. These stories are about the moment, and ultimately, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Fortress by Kristina Marie Darling | Tarpaulin Sky
Fortress is an intensely effective work that demonstrates the emotional power of literary subversion. It shows how postmodern techniques can work in concert with sincerity and truth. The pages in the book are mostly blank; only the notes survive. And, often—in life and in love—that’s all we get, when all is said and done.
Jonathan Russell Clark 