Tag: 02.20

The sad truth is that the novel now doesn’t occupy the same cultural high ground, and it doesn’t typically feel to readers like a practical device for addressing problems. The decline of the novel’s prestige reflects a new crisis born of our culture’s increasing failure of intellectual nerve and its terminal doubt about its own progress. – The Spectator

What are we to think, then, about a critic criticizing a critic? Do I intend to get you to see Sebald or Roth as I see Wood seeing them? But of course, to see Wood as I see him is, in part, to see how Wood sees. He has stained my vision indelibly, and I can pay him no greater tribute than to read him (and to ask you to read him) as generously, justly, and gorgeously as he taught me to read. – BookForum