Yet if the source of this confusion is undefined, it is because Dazai’s characters only subscribe to the first half of the trad’s mantra: they reject modernity, but they do not embrace tradition.

They’re a potent reminder that we still live in the long, dark shadow of the twentieth century—the bargains made therein, the general Faustian demeanor accepted as a national character—and that a certain kind of serious, Modernist fiction still has a place and resonates.

Using serious modes and channels to critique writers like Franzen only legitimizes them as serious people to be debated. What better consolation than to shitpost?

Contrary to no one’s expectations, Emmanuel Carrère has written another book about himself. If you’re just being introduced, this is his fourth or fifth.

There's an inherent bias in our fiction-making against the mysterious, the uncanny (style—not narrative). For all the left-leaning of the literary industrial complex, there's a rampant conservativism in its language.