The New Yorker: The Slowness of Literature and the Shadow of Knowledge

[yixiuer]

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-slowness-of-literature-and-the-shadow-of-knowledge

I’m not thinking of how long it takes to read a book but of how long its effects can be felt, and of the strange phenomenon that even literature written in other times, on the basis of assumptions radically different to our own and, occasionally, hugely alien to us, can continue to speak to us—and, not only that, but can tell us something about who we are, something that we would not have seen otherwise, or would have seen differently.