Posts Tagged ‘Jean Valjean’

  • In Defense of Description

    July 25th, 2013 | Literature | journalpulp | 3 Comments

    There’s a common misconception — unfortunately growing — popular among so-called commercial-fiction coaches predominantly, though not exclusively, that stories and novels have one and only one real purpose: storytelling. Which is to say, plot. Which is to say, conflict. Anything, therefore, that slows the pace of the plot — or anything that disrupts the plot […]

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  • A Novel Shouldn’t Make You Think, It Should Make You Shiver

    A Novel Shouldn’t Make You Think, It Should Make You Shiver

    February 27th, 2012 | philosophy of art | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    In a lecture he delivered at Cornell University, Vladimir Nabokov said this: “A work of art shouldn’t make you think, it should make you shiver.” And yet in reply to that one must ask: what about those of us who actually like for a book to make us think? What about those of us who […]

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