3 ms·
I'd think that one thing praise books for is the ability to immerse yourself in other worlds, or to nurture a curious mind. Here, the reviewer is praising the
by rgoulter 3y ago
I'd think that one thing praise books for is the ability to immerse yourself in other worlds, or to nurture a curious mind.
Here, the reviewer is praising the book for (seemingly) mapping some historical trial to present day politics, which he has some righteous feelings about (& doesn't indicate the book changed his mind about anything).
I guess it's a form of escape, but doesn't really tickle my curiosity all that much.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoClassic literature so frequently uses a setting that was already archaic to its readership, to depict that readership's contemporary politics. Literature isn't exclusively escapism. For example, Arthur Miller's The Crucible is about the 17th-century Salem witch trials, but it was written to respond to the McCarthy trials of 1950s America.
- jhbadger 3y agoSimilarly Lawrence & Lee's 1955 Inherit the Wind which was a fictionalization of the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" about a teacher being on trial for teaching evolution in the Deep South. Like with The Crucible, it was really talking about the current events of McCarthyism, as in the 1950s it was assumed that everybody accepted evolution by then. Although as later decades showed, creationism wasn't quite as dead as belief in witchcraft.