Matthew Cheney's Public Library

In a bookstore with Michael Dirda

"Milan Kundera writes novels, but are they philosophy or fiction? Kundera himself (in an interview collected in The Art of Novel) finds the comparison with philosophy ‘inappropriate’: ‘Philosophy develops its thought in an abstract realm, without characters, without situations.’ That is what a certain tradition of philosophy does. But when Richard Rorty describes philosophy as turning to narrative and the imagination, pointing us towards solidarity through ‘the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers’, we seem close to Kundera’s work, and to much traditional thinking about what fiction will do for us."

"This week's Sunday Review section of the New York Times has as its headline article an opinion piece by feminist academic and film director Dr. Elinor Burkett, entitled "What Makes a Woman?" The tagline summarizing the post is "There is a collision course between feminists and transgender activists." This of course frames trans activists as antifeminists, making it clear at once that this piece is a manifesto of trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, ideology. It's written with a sympathetic tone, and Burkett positions herself as someone who wants to support trans people. She claims she just can't because we are seeking to undo the hard work she and other feminists of her generation have done. "

"It’s easy to criticise call-out culture. It’s harder to look into your own heart and ask if you can do better."

"It’s interesting that you call it a novella. Isn’t it a work of non-fiction?

I’m very interested in capturing a certain reality, but the difference between non-fiction and fiction really is that you can get sued for one and not the other."

some of the most celebrated practitioners of modern fantasy share with their pre-modern predecessors this belief that the fictional apparatus of fantasy is a relatively close approximation to the way things really are for human beings.

"For some, the Anthropocene debates seem irrelevant: does it matter where in the past geologists decide to place a golden spike, when such urgent questions remain about our future? But the liveliness of the discussion reflects the explanatory promise of the Anthropocene concept: it is a debate over what kind of story can and should be told about human impact on the planet. The claim is often made that climate change is simply too big to see—that it is what eco-critic Timothy Morton terms a hyperobject, something that cannot be realized in any specific instance. The Anthropocene offers climate change not just periodicity but narrativity. And like any well-told story, it relies upon conscious plotting and the manipulation of feeling."

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on racism and privilege