James Wood

The Irresponsible Self

• The big contemporary novel is a perpetual motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. It seems to want to abolish stillness, as if ashamed of silence. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page, and these novels continually flourish their glamorous congestion.
  • Hysterical realism

• An excess of storytelling has become the contemporary way of shrouding, in majesty, a lack; it is the Sun King principle. The lack is the human.
  • Hysterical realism