Why Criticism Matters – Essay by Elif Batuman NYTimes, 2011.
Literature viewed in this way becomes a gigantic multifarious dream produced by a historical moment. The role of the critic is then less to exhaustively explain any single work than to identify, in a group of works, a reflection of some conditioned aspect of reality.
Batuman reads “Constructed Worlds” is adapted from her forthcoming first novel, “The Idiot.”
Also, How to Be a Stoic.
