An Excerpt from our new anthology, THE STORY ABOUT THE STORY, which hits bookshelves today.
Human credulity is indeed wonderful. There may be good reasons for believing in a King or a Judge or a Lord Mayor. When we see them go sweeping by in their robes and their wigs, with their heralds and their outriders, our [...]
The essays collected in The Story About the Story assault the institution of literary criticism.
The problem with literary criticism is not that critical actions conducted on literary texts do them damage—the problem is the way in which critical actions tend to be conducted. There’s a basic contradiction built into the system: dry, soul-deadening, derivative, entirely [...]
The whole question of beginnings is tricky—a point Geoff Dyer makes about D.H. Lawrence’s poetry in the excerpt of Out of Sheer Rage reprinted in The Story About the Story:
“Who can say when a poem begins to stir, to germinate, in the soil of the writer’s mind? There are certain experiences waiting to happen: like [...]
