Wood on Current Fiction

[Richard Romeo]

I like this quote from interview James Wood did with the Boston Globe a
few days ago (bolding mine):

 

WOOD: It might sound strange, since I criticize writers like Don DeLillo
so fiercely, but I do like novels set clearly in the present age, novels
full of palpabilities. I think that's what the novel can still do better
than any other medium journalism doesn't provide me with news about the
current state of the soul. Part of my anxiety and unease about novels by
Foster Wallace, Franzen, and others is that they have swallowed a great
deal of journalism, sociology, and cultural studies, which means they
are no longer doing something that's not replaceable that another medium
can't do as well or better. . . . I am accused of being too harsh, but
the critic's job is to look at the threats, the menaces to literature.

 

Richard 

 

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