![]() ![]() In the shaky realm of literature reacting quickly to a crisis in motion, mess and chaos are the forms that speak best to painful realities. ![]() It relies on the ability to channel inner experience outward, and because no inner experience of the coronavirus pandemic could plausibly be described as complete, prose that renders it static and comprehensible rings false. ![]() Three assemblies of coronavirus-response writing-Zadie Smith’s essay collection Intimations The New York Times’ short-fiction compilation, The Decameron Project and the mixed-genre anthology And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, edited by Ilan Stavans-tell me why: No one has had time to truly refine their ideas about personal life in a state of widespread isolation and existential dread, and literature, even when political, is a fundamentally personal realm. ![]() So far, the nascent literature of the coronavirus pandemic has reinforced my distrust. Even in fascist-free situations, the concealment principle is common enough that I have come to approach beauty and neatness in art with some skepticism. Walter Benjamin wrote that a key element of fascism is the aestheticization of politics-the concealment of bad thinking behind bright optics. A corollary fact is that polished, elegant prose serves as a useful, if not always intentional, hiding place for half-baked ideas. A bleak fact of writing is that honing sentences is often far easier than honing the thoughts they convey. ![]()
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