In the hands of culture warriors, stories have become weaponized. It’s difficult to figure out how we should fight back.
Tag Archives: Peter Brooks
Reading Proust as Lenten Observance
For Lent this year, I am taking on Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” I hope to gain new insight into the nature of fictional engagement.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged In Search of Lost Time, Lent, Malcolm Guite, Marcel Proust Comments closed
Literary Characters, Mirrors of the Soul
Literary characters, according to Peter Brooks, help us understand “the most elusive and consequential issues of our limited human existence.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged In Search of Lost Time, literary characters, Marcel Proust, Seduced by Story, Walter Benjamin Comments closed
To Understand Your Life, Read Novels
Theorist Peter Brooks contends that it is through novels that we find shape and meaning to our lives.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged narrative, narratology, Seduced by Story, Walter Benjamin Comments closed
The Usefulness of “Let’s Pretend”
In “Seduced by Story,” Brooks challenges the idea that literature is meant to be useful. Instead, he says, it resembles play (and then acknowledges that play itself is useful).
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alice in Wonderland, Alice through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, narrative, narratology, Seduced by Story Comments closed
Worried about BS? Read Great Lit
While I enjoy Peter Brooks’s “Seduced by Story,” I wish it went further.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Defense of Poesy, fiction, Seduced by Story, Sir Philip Sidney Comments closed
Just How Dangerous Is Fiction?
Peter Brooks’s new book, “Seduced by Story,” raises the issue of fiction’s role in horrors.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged atrocities, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russo-Ukrainian War, Vladimir Putin Comments closed
