Literary Criticism

Poetry is an essential part of society—but only as itself and not as a vehicle for something else.

Houellebecq wore his biography, professional identity, marital status, and psychiatric condition – everything modern society considers intrinsic and defining of the individual – as an amusing costume to be played with and discarded. He frees himself through his work from the straitjacket of ‘identity politics’ which placates its prisoners, like a... See more

She has said she is against “the self-promotion obsessively imposed by the media. This demand for self-promotion diminishes the actual work of art, whatever that art may be...” Thus, she continues to absent herself from the marketing of her work. While acknowledging her position is extreme, she maintains “that a book has to absolutely make it on... See more

"Prose-forward,” though, goes a long way toward explaining what books are counted as literary in the real world. Not just as a term that explains what unites the surrealism of Donald Barthelme, the Kmart realism of Ann Beattie, the lush prose of Toni Morrison, and [insert infinite other examples here]. But also what genre authors are counted among... See more