"Reading for self-recognition is the default factory setting in most people's minds."
— Heller, Nathan
Author
Work Title
Date
September 1, 2014
Metaphor
"Reading for self-recognition is the default factory setting in most people's minds."
Metaphor in Context
This is a stunning definition, and not just because it is plainly untrue. (Do we appreciate Borges's "The Library of Babel" because we see ourselves in it? Is familiarity the essential experience of "Blue Velvet" or, for that matter, "Spaceballs"?) Reading for self-recognition is the default factory setting in most people's minds. It is precisely the approach to literature that you don't need to attend college to learn. When Deresiewicz insists that an objective of literary study, and the multiple perspectives it admits, is ultimately to give kids "models" and "values" that may inform their self-understanding, he's embracing a pretty solipsistic measure of virtue--something closer to therapy than to scholarship.
(p. 70)
(p. 70)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Nathan Heller, "Poison Ivy," The New Yorker (September 1, 2014). <Link to www.newyorker.com>
Date of Entry
08/29/2014
