Monday, November 23, 2009

Zadie Smith: Essays versus fiction

In The Guardian, Zadie Smith considers the arguments presented by David Shields whose new book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
argues passionately for the superiority of the messy real – of what we might call 'truthiness' – over the careful creations of novelists, and other artists, who work with artificial and imagined narratives.
Smith is not convinced:
In these arguments the new received wisdom is that all plots are 'conventional' and all characters sentimental and bourgeois, and all settings bad theatrical backdrops, wooden and painted. Such objections are, I think, sincere responses to the experience of reading bad novels

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1:38 am

    An argument sooooo relevant to the needs of modern storytelling (not). I'm with Zadie Smith on this one. But really... are we seriously having to defend fiction now, or does this Shields guy just need a career in a hurry?

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