saturnine
(en)
(adjective) born under or influenced astrologically by the planet Saturn / (adjective) cold and steady in mood; slow to act or change / (adjective) of a gloomy or surly disposition / (adjective) having a sardonic aspect
9
I premised these saturnine essays on a fairly basic assumption
uncertain
6 years, 7 months ago
I premised these saturnine essays on a fairly basic assumption
uncertain
6 years, 7 months ago
ineluctable
(en)
unable to be resisted or avoided; inescapable
9
10
I would argue, then, that the contemporary novelist who is not in any way addressing the changed reality of the present may yet be serving an important function. For the reader, that is--not necessarily for the genre itself. A crucial distinction. Through his deployment of the language, through giving expression to his vision, the writer may be creating a self-contained alternate order--a place where the ambitious reader can go to counter the centrifuge of late modernity, where he can, at least for a time, possess the aesthetic illusion of focus and sustain a single-minded immersion in circumstance no longer so generally available. that this is vicarious does not undermine its validity: it is a mode of surrogate living which most closely approximates what living felt like before technologies began to divide us from ourselves.
I like the centrifuge metaphor
I would argue, then, that the contemporary novelist who is not in any way addressing the changed reality of the present may yet be serving an important function. For the reader, that is--not necessarily for the genre itself. A crucial distinction. Through his deployment of the language, through giving expression to his vision, the writer may be creating a self-contained alternate order--a place where the ambitious reader can go to counter the centrifuge of late modernity, where he can, at least for a time, possess the aesthetic illusion of focus and sustain a single-minded immersion in circumstance no longer so generally available. that this is vicarious does not undermine its validity: it is a mode of surrogate living which most closely approximates what living felt like before technologies began to divide us from ourselves.
I like the centrifuge metaphor
exigent
(en)
(adjective) requiring immediate aid or action / (adjective) requiring or calling for much; demanding
12
we can repossess what the exigencies of living in a high-speed information age are denying us
notable
6 years, 7 months ago
we can repossess what the exigencies of living in a high-speed information age are denying us
notable
6 years, 7 months ago