What is Literature?

"Writing and reading are two facets of the same historical fact, and the freedom to which the writer invites us is not a pure abstract consciousness of being free. Strictly speaking, it is not; it wins itself in an historical situation; each book proposes a concrete liberation on the basis of a particular alienation. Hence, in each one there is an implicit recourse to institutions, customs, certain forms of implicit recourse to institutions, customs, certain forms of oppression and conflict, to the wisdom and the folly of the day, to lasting passions and passing stubbornness, to superstitions and recent victories of commonsense, to evidence and ignorance, to particular modes of reasoning which the sciences have made fashionable and which are applied in all domains, to hopes to fears, to habits of sensibility, imagination, and even perception, and finally, to customs and values which have been handed down, to a whole world which the author and the reader have in common. It is this familiar world which the writer animates and penetrates with his freedom."

First published in 1947 and dealing mostly with French literature, it's surprising how relevant many of Sartre's ideas here still seem relevant. Basically a phenomenology of reading and writing, the book covers, in Sartre's typically dense prose, the purpose of writing, writing for political ends, why people read and just about any other topic Sartre can possibly link to these concepts. It's tough going at times for philosophical neophytes (such as myself) but there are enough engaging concepts revealed here to keep the attention of anyone with an interest in literary criticism interested.

(This review originally appeared on zombieunderground.net) ( )