Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Mark Ravenhill seeks paradise

In The Guardian, Guild member Mark Ravenhill asks if British writers are still capable of creating meaningful visions of paradise.
When I say paradise I don't mean the Christian, snake-and-apple kind of place. Not the CS Lewis Narnia thing. I mean something more like those medieval paintings of the Land of Cockayne, a place where struggle and pain have been banished and all human needs are satisfied immediately and totally. There's plenty of bad genre stuff that does this kind of paradise. Sunday night television drama - "People's Friend" TV - where warm yokels bumble around Yorkshire or the Glens. Or pornography, which in its own sweet way cuts straight to the chase with a fantasy of immediately gratified human needs. But where's the good stuff?

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