The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion of treason as scheme and treason as language.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
After the French Revolution, it was not the treason of the king that was in question; it was the existence of the king. You have to be very careful when you judge and execute somebody for being a symbol.
This principle is old, but true as fate, Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.
The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.
Disunion by force is treason.
I think the purpose of the writer is to help us see. The writer is someone who can perhaps have the joy of helping others see.
This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.
We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.
No baseness or cruelty of treason so deep or so tragic shall enter our human world, but that loyal love shall be able in due time to oppose to just that deed of treason its fitting deed of atonement.
In Count Julian I simply proposed to create a text which would allow for diverse levels of reading.
Bad literature is a form of treason.