Novelized biography of michael

UPDATE

I still think this mighty beast is great but it’s great like the Grand Canyon and quite often when I read a paragraph I get a feeling that Michael Schmidt is just too clever/cultured/informed/lofty for the likes of me.

I mean, great God, he’s read like everything… is he 200 years old or does he have the time stopping power of The Fermata like in Nicholson Baker? Here’s an example. On p74 he discusses Daniel Defoe.

Novelized biography of michael jackson

(I have only read Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.) He contrasts Defoe with Aphra Behn, a novelist very few people now read, so he has me at an advantage already. I have to take his word for all things Aphra related.

What Defoe has and Behn lacks is a developed dissenting conscience. This gives his novels, in a first person that is dogmatically rooted, focus and direction. Like her, he writes for effect, but the effects he strives for are moral, a morality anachronistic and problematic.

1) What does he mean by “disse