| tart --> | | | | Die Hard franchise is great entertainment but it's |
| True, serious, honest literature can liberate us | | | | not liberating art. |
| from our chains and bonds and redeem the | | | | Is true literature an escape hatch through which |
| dignity and wholeness of a life that gets | | | | we can fly away from the daily grind? Yes it is, |
| squandered in so many shopping trips to the mall, | | | | but it is not ONLY an escape. That's why |
| and so many idle days and nights spent in | | | | YouTube is great fun and escape but it's not |
| meaningless work and watching all that drivel on | | | | liberating art. |
| the tube. | | | | What I have in mind are the novels and story |
| A definition is in order. I do not want to mean | | | | books written by famous award-winning authors |
| that "only" "true literature" is art. No. Art is an | | | | like John Irving, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, Billy |
| infinite field of creation and expression. But I | | | | Collins, and countless other writers and poets. |
| believe not all art liberates. Some actually thicken | | | | How does (what I call) "true literature" do that? |
| the chains that tie us to our fears and illusions. | | | | Let me try to count the ways. |
| Some art liberates us from the bonds that keep | | | | First of all, good literature is honest literature. It is |
| us as dwarfs while good literature gives us the | | | | art with minimum trickery in terms of (not the |
| wings that we never suspected we had. | | | | format and style but) its core meaning and human |
| Is true literature entertainment? Of course it is | | | | significance. |
| but it is not ONLY entertainment. That's why the | | | | |