4.5
Comforting Myths
ByPublisher Description
A timely and urgent inquiry by one of global literature's leading lights
In this concisely argued and illuminating book, the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author Rabih Alameddine takes the subject of politics and art head-on, questioning the very premise of dividing these two pillars of culture into an either/or proposition. He reveals how a political dimension enlarges a work of art rather than making it less beautiful or reducing it to a polemic, as we are so often and carelessly taught. But he also ponders what makes art political to begin with: how essential is the artist’s conscious political intent, and what does the reader or viewer contribute to the work’s political capability or significance? In exploring these questions, Alameddine engages intensely with his role as an immigrant and a gay author writing inside a globally dominant, often oblivious culture, and invokes the work of numerous writers, from Tayeb Salih and Aleksandar Hemon to Teju Cole and Salman Rushdie, who also struggle to be heard as something more than an “other.” The book features throughout Alameddine’s brilliantly relatable voice—shrewd, humorous, challenging, and as honest about his own limitations as he is about his passions.
In this concisely argued and illuminating book, the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author Rabih Alameddine takes the subject of politics and art head-on, questioning the very premise of dividing these two pillars of culture into an either/or proposition. He reveals how a political dimension enlarges a work of art rather than making it less beautiful or reducing it to a polemic, as we are so often and carelessly taught. But he also ponders what makes art political to begin with: how essential is the artist’s conscious political intent, and what does the reader or viewer contribute to the work’s political capability or significance? In exploring these questions, Alameddine engages intensely with his role as an immigrant and a gay author writing inside a globally dominant, often oblivious culture, and invokes the work of numerous writers, from Tayeb Salih and Aleksandar Hemon to Teju Cole and Salman Rushdie, who also struggle to be heard as something more than an “other.” The book features throughout Alameddine’s brilliantly relatable voice—shrewd, humorous, challenging, and as honest about his own limitations as he is about his passions.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesComforting Myths Reviews
4.5
Stregadigatti
Created 5 months agoShare
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“If you pride yourself on (so-called?) diversity in your reading, you need to consume these two essays by Rabih Alameddine!
You'll be asking yourself: Why is it that political books are understood to be "bad literature"? Why do we praise novels written by "foreign" Western authors for building a non-intimidating bridge to (insert non-European ethnicity here)? Why is John Updike such a dick in his book reviews?
All great ideas for further contemplation, and examined in under 100 pages. Go now! As Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood famously tweeted: "do it right now I'm very extremely serious."”
spaceykate✨🌌
Created 6 months agoShare
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“This collection of two essays by Alameddine and accompanying afterword hover around the central theme that most writing is (or can be) political, and that’s not a bad thing.
In the first essay, Alameddine walks through the various factors that can make writing political, ranging from novels on non-war topics during times of active conflict to the race of narrators in famous stories, and the audience reception to these pieces. Not talking about politics is only beneficial to those who wish to remain in charge; telling authors to stay in their lane or praising work because it appears apolitical not only limits the art, but is detrimental to the whole. We as readers need to divorce ourselves from the mentality that just because a book has political themes means it’s not good.
In the second piece, Alameddine digs into this concept of the dominant culture defining what is political (particularly when it comes to writing, as in novels), and that most authors who are “allowed to talk” hold a gilded mirror up to this dominant culture. There’s a section that posits Western writers with non-American backgrounds are “purveyors of comforting myths”, a pre-digested tour guide for an audience who views them as “other” but just familiar *enough* — for both a political and cultural lens to their perceived home culture.
Together these essays are a digestible look at politics in literature and uncomfortable truths. While I’m not sure I totally “got it”, reading this collection was an exercise in pushing myself outside of my usual comfort zone & encouraged me to start thinking a bit more critically about what is (and isn’t) published in mainstream media and why.”
Ally
Created 7 months agoShare
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““The only way you can think that politics is separate from literature is if that political system is working for you.”
(I believe you could replace the word ‘literature’ with all other types of art and expression)
“If a novel reinforced the dominant society’s values, that culture will not think of the novel as political; if it doesn’t, it will. If a novel threatens how the dominant culture views itself, the dominant culture considers it political.””
james
Created 7 months agoShare
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