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Review of Rachel Cusk’s Outline

July 21, 2019

Book Review, Criticism

book, fiction, Greece, literary fiction, literature, Rachel Cusk, review

This post features another book review, and yet it’s so much more than a review. Writing this review of Rachel Cusk’s Outline is a fantastic opportunity for me to talk about literary fiction. What it should be and what it doesn’t care about.

Often on this blog I talk about over-explaining in fiction, or about realistic characters versus insignificant plots. Rachel Cusk’s Outline is one of the best examples of what high-quality (literary) fiction ought to be.

Review of Rachel Cusk's Outline
Rachel Cusk’s Outline is set in Athens, but not in the way you might expect

Outline is not perfect (we’ll talk about its flaws in a while), but as an example it’s near-flawless. In other words, it’s great teaching material.

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Five Questions about Dracula Answered

July 16, 2019

Literature, Society

academia, Gothic, popularity, questions, social masses

Let’s do something fun this time. Or rather, let’s combine fun with knowledge and – horror of horrors – the academia. Before you run away from this page, shrieking in horror, hold your breath and wait: I’m planning to take the five most popular questions about Dracula as they appear on Google searches and answer them.

As you probably already know, Google’s autocomplete feature reveals the most common questions about a certain topic as you begin typing. Now, this also reveals some incredible stupidity out there. For instance, if you begin typing “is the moon”, the first results include “is the moon a star”, “is the moon a planet”To be absolutely fair, there might be a legitimate question there., and even – brace yourself – “is the moon made of cheese”.

At this point, I have no idea what I’ll get if I begin typing questions about Dracula, so I’m ready to be surprised myself. Let’s get started!

Questions about Dracula
Five questions about Dracula and vampires you always wanted to ask
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What Is Literary Fiction: not what You Think It Is

July 11, 2019

Literature

literary fiction, literature, reading, reality, symbolism, writing

What is literary fiction? Well, I could offer you a definition – and I will, in a while. But let’s get this out of the way. Literary fiction is probably not what you think it is.

Literary fiction is not a “genre”. Indeed, it is the very opposite of “genre” fiction (we will discuss this, too).

Moreover, literary fiction is not “high-quality” fiction. It can be, of course, but there is mediocre literary fiction, as there is stunningly brilliant genre fiction.

What is literary fiction
What is literary fiction? It’s not about what you say but how you say it

And so, if someone asks you what is literary fiction, how should you reply? Allow me to throw the A-bomb and then we’ll take a closer look: Literary fiction is an aesthetic framework for approaching the human condition.

If you feel confused, worry not. I’ll unpack it for you right away.

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