Weekly Readings #195 (10/27/25-11/02/25)
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
Russian formalism
10 min read
The article quotes the Russian Formalist concept that 'art exists to make the stone stony' (Viktor Shklovsky's defamiliarization theory). Understanding this literary movement provides essential context for the author's arguments about form vs. content in art.
-
René Girard
14 min read
The article explicitly discusses Girard's literary theory about the 'banality' of great literature and his polemics against Romanticism and modernism. Understanding Girard's mimetic theory and cultural criticism illuminates the theoretical framework being engaged.
A weekly newsletter on what I’ve written, read, and otherwise enjoyed.
I was happy to appear this week on Ian Cattanach’s Write Conscious for a long conversation about my new novel Major Arcana, the current literary landscape, novelistic technique, writing and spirituality, and more, including a little gossip toward the end. I support Ian’s efforts to spark a “literary renaissance” through “transformative fiction.” As a longtime watcher of Ian’s YouTube1 channel—he might be the most original and iconoclastic of the online Cormackians—I can say he’s one of the few people around to carry the most serious of literary standards into what we might call “the spirituality space.” Thanks again for the conversation! I also noticed that the New York Public Library has promoted Major Arcana this week on their list of “Fiction and Nonfiction Reads for Comics Lovers.”2 You can order Major Arcana here in all formats—print, ebook, and audio—or in print wherever books are sold online. You might also suggest that your local library or independent bookstore acquire a copy, and leave a Goodreads, Amazon, or other rating and review. Thanks to all my readers!
Then there’s The Invisible College, my literature podcast for paid subscribers. We are more than halfway through a 15-part sequence on the modern American novel. This week, in an episode called “I Have Had to Listen Too Long,” I offer a guide to that most difficult of Great American Novels, Faulkner’s high-modernist Southern-Gothic long-sentence3 masterpiece Absalom, Absalom! Along the way I provide a theory of American Gothic and its relation to Faulkner’s Freudian agenda to “work through” the nightmare of Southern history until we are fit to arrive at a future where “I who regard you will also have sprung from the loins of African kings.” Next week: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Please remember that a paid subscription to Grand Hotel Abyss buys you access to The Invisible College’s ever-expanding archive, with over 80 two- to three-hour episodes on literary subjects from Homer to Joyce.2 Thanks to all my current and future paid subscribers!
Because it’s relevant to the Write Conscious interview, the main text this week elaborates on literature and magic; in the footnotes, some final thoughts on The Melancholy of Resistance, a capsule review of Bugonia, and more. Please enjoy!
Conscious Creation: Magic vs. Art Redux
In a new
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.