Try to picture a work of contemporary literature that exhibits a faith in the global free market, that understands exurbs as the latest manifestation of the American dream, that exposes wasteful social programs and presents sympathetic Republicans struggling to stand by their principles. Admit it: it’s tantalizing. ~Benjamin Nugent
I shouldn’t have said in the last post that Nugent asked the wrong question or the question that misses the point, but simply that he asked the far less interesting question. He really is primarily concerned with finding people who will write a specifically Republican novel, to which I would have to reply: “Who cares?”
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 12th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
MW Frost
This passage also proves your point, in that Nugent is crying out for an inherently (and infuriatingly) optimistic novel. A better recipe for insipidity is hard to imagine.
March 12th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Daniel Larison
Quite right. Now let’s imagine a Solzhenitsyn of the exurbs, and just think of the spiritual indictment such a man could produce. Now *that* would be an interesting read.
March 13th, 2007 at 3:20 am
MW Frost
Or imagine Nugent marking up Conrad’s manuscript for, say, Lord Jim and returning it with comments.