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I usually see the word “metafiction” applied to works that draw attention to their own devices, their own artificiality, in order to mock novelistic convention and show the impossibility of capturing a reality external to the text or whatever.

  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I guess when I’m frightened or in pain or maybe very bored I’ve tried to hold myself together by imposing a narrative order on the experience as it happens.

    I guess when I’m frightened or in pain or maybe very bored I’ve tried to hold myself together by imposing a narrative order on the experience as it happens.

    BEN LERNER
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.

    Few real people appear in my two novels, actually. “Ari” appears on the edge of this book a couple of times – but on the edge, she’s never in it, even if she’s a determining force from the outside. Everybody in the first book was basically made up, if never from scratch.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Maybe that’s the way I’m private – I respect the privacy of “my” characters? Anyway, we’re getting close to the whole “relatability” and “likability” thing.

    Maybe that’s the way I’m private – I respect the privacy of “my” characters? Anyway, we’re getting close to the whole “relatability” and “likability” thing.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Just in case God isn’t dead, our astronauts carry sidearms.

    Just in case God isn’t dead, our astronauts carry sidearms.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Experiments with the “as if” of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels. Download This Image

    Experiments with the “as if” of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Henry James claim that if you want to be a novelist you should be somebody on whom nothing is lost. Download This Image

    Henry James claim that if you want to be a novelist you should be somebody on whom nothing is lost.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I came to realize that far more important to me than any plot or conventional sense was the sheer directionality I felt while reading prose, the texture of time as it passed, life’s white machine.

    I came to realize that far more important to me than any plot or conventional sense was the sheer directionality I felt while reading prose, the texture of time as it passed, life’s white machine.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I wasn’t aware I’d write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.

    I wasn’t aware I’d write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I don’t think “I’m going to publish this as fiction” but I think “I’m going to tell this story to a friend” and then I start telling the story in my mind as the experience transpires as a way of pretending it’s already happened.

    I don’t think “I’m going to publish this as fiction” but I think “I’m going to tell this story to a friend” and then I start telling the story in my mind as the experience transpires as a way of pretending it’s already happened.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Many of the left thinkers that really matter to me – that formed a big part of my thinking about politics and art – emphasize how capitalism is a totality, how there’s no escape from it, no outside. Download This Image

    Many of the left thinkers that really matter to me – that formed a big part of my thinking about politics and art – emphasize how capitalism is a totality, how there’s no escape from it, no outside.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - When the narrator feels like an octopus, when he says his limbs are starting to multiply, he means he has inklings of orders of perception beyond his individual body. Download This Image

    When the narrator feels like an octopus, when he says his limbs are starting to multiply, he means he has inklings of orders of perception beyond his individual body.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - My concern is how we live fictions, how fictions have real effects, become facts in that sense, and how our experience of the world changes depending on its arrangement into one narrative or another.

    My concern is how we live fictions, how fictions have real effects, become facts in that sense, and how our experience of the world changes depending on its arrangement into one narrative or another.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - Every relationship can feel saturated by market logic or at best purchased at the price of the immiseration of others. Download This Image

    Every relationship can feel saturated by market logic or at best purchased at the price of the immiseration of others.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - I’m defending fiction as a human capacity more than as a popular or dying literary genre.

    I’m defending fiction as a human capacity more than as a popular or dying literary genre.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - The scare quotes burn off like fog.

    The scare quotes burn off like fog.

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  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Ben Lerner Quote - The problem is that if you’re self-conscious about being a person on whom nothing is lost, isn’t something lost – some kind of presence? You’re distracted by trying to be totally, perfectly impressionable. Download This Image

    The problem is that if you’re self-conscious about being a person on whom nothing is lost, isn’t something lost – some kind of presence? You’re distracted by trying to be totally, perfectly impressionable.

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