Tag Archives: Seduced by Story

Are Stories a Trap? Not the Great Ones

By Robin Bates | Published: July 20, 2023

A recent New Yorker article critiques our reliance on stories but makes the mistake of not distinguishing between different kinds of stories.

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Literary Characters, Mirrors of the Soul

By Robin Bates | Published: February 2, 2023

Literary characters, according to Peter Brooks, help us understand “the most elusive and consequential issues of our limited human existence.

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To Understand Your Life, Read Novels

By Robin Bates | Published: January 31, 2023

Theorist Peter Brooks contends that it is through novels that we find shape and meaning to our lives.

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The Usefulness of “Let’s Pretend”

By Robin Bates | Published: January 24, 2023

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).

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Worried about BS? Read Great Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: December 29, 2022

While I enjoy Peter Brooks’s “Seduced by Story,” I wish it went further.

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Fiction as Authoritarian Weapon

By Robin Bates | Published: December 21, 2022

In “Seduced by Story,” Peter Brooks warns of the dangers of narrative. Borges agrees in “Tlon Uqbar.”

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