Tag: The Novel
The Wisdom of Uncertainty
by doconnor on Oct.09, 2009, under Literature
“But alas, the novel too is ravaged by the termites of reduction”
(Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel, p17)
“a period of repetition in which the novel keeps duplicating its form, emptied of its spirit”
(Milan Kundera, p15)
In his essay “The Uses of Desire”, Adam Phillips has the following to say about what psychoanalysts term “the antonym of desire” or “perversion”, but which he chooses to call “an anxious narrowing of the mind when it comes to pleasure”:
“An intent knowingness – a determined and determining knowing what one wants – characterises so-called sexual perversions. The person in a perverse state of mind has no conscious doubt about what will excite and satisfy him.” (Side Effects, 167) (continue reading…)
