![]() ![]() ![]() And while they’re talking about novels, the conundrum of self-aware privilege and what to do about it is perhaps even more apparent in nonfiction prose. I don’t share all these critics’ assessments of all the books in question, but, broadly speaking, I’d say they’re onto something. The problem is the defensive postures that all the self-awareness seems to produce, among characters and the writers who create them: squirmy half-apologies, self-deprecating irony, piously articulated desires to do better, and, perhaps, an implication that self-awareness is “enough” - that simply acknowledging one’s luck amid the world’s cavalcade of injustice might count as doing something to make it better. The problem isn’t the self-awareness itself, exactly no one thinks we need more books by self-deluding buffoons. A recent crop of essays - by Katy Waldman for The New Yorker, Ryu Spaeth for The New Republic, and Lauren Oyler for Bookforum - have diagnosed an overabundance of self-awareness among writers today, at least the ones who write about comfortable people leading comfortable lives. Self-awareness is general in summer 2020, at least according to the people who read books and write about them. ![]()
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