- Date added
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July 26, 2022, 10:50 a.m.
- Description
- There is this slowly congealing idea that it is morally and aesthetically sufficient to merely recreate the alienating torpor of having one’s life organized ruthlessly and brutally by capitalism. The adjunct novel, the novel of millennial precarity, the novel of racial animus, all of which are simply off-shots of naturalism, hew to this idea that the most harrowing thing one can do is simply recreate the effect of the brutal force shaping one’s life. There need not be a suggestion of alternative lives or alternative routes. One need only fire up the ol observational apparatus and nail a couple astute comments about what people say and do in offices and in bars and cafes and on the street, and there you have it, job done.