Activity

Thus Raskolnikov's mad need to confess his crime to the police and to Sonia the prostitute, presages Freud's comment on the action of the supergo

there is something piquant about a man who is at once an omnivorous roamer of the world's knowledge and literatures, and at the same time a little Welsh provincial

It is presented by the author in full exegetical mode

My own taste tends towards the sketchier fictional personage, whose lacunae and omissions tease us, provoke us to wade in their deep shallows

This tutoring is dialectical. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turns makes us better readers of life.