“The idea of some kind of objectively constant, universal literary value is seductive. It feels real. It feels like a stone cold fact that In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, is better than A Shore Thing, by Snooki. And it may be; Snooki definitely has more one-star reviews on Amazon. But if literary value is real, no one seems to be able to locate it or define it very well. We're increasingly adrift in a grey void of aesthetic relativism.” IfsFeelsWellsKindMayIdeasRealFactsSeemsAbleValuesLostStarsColdStonesUniversalConstantReviewsShoreVoidAestheticGreyAmazonSeductiveRelativismProustLost TimeAdriftStone ColdSnooki Author:Lev Grossman
“The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head.” IfsHas BeensFactsBodyFormLossCommonPoetOughtCostMusicianToolsStonesFundamentalsMythSuperiorsPainterSymbolsSubstanceSavagesEffectivenessPierce Book:Tristes Tropiques Source: Tristes Tropiques
“That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination, our species has advanced from Stone Age to Industrial Revolution to Digital Emptiness. We've become weightless, in the bad sense of the word.” Has BeensFactsAgePlanetsRevolutionAchievementDeterminationStonesSpeciesEmptinessDigitalFloodMagnificentNothingnessIndustrial RevolutionGreat AchievementStone Age Author:Alan Lightman