This essay is as brilliant as her novel. Read and share. Please. Heres a sample: Pushing a little deeper into the relationship between literature and the imagination, I want to point out, too, the way literature—both the reading of it and the writing of it—can reunite an individual’s conscious and unconscious. I can’t emphasize how imperative I think this reunion is. I would argue that many of our contemporary ills are caused or exacerbated by our culture’s rending the conscious from the unconscious, then elevating the conscious—the intellect, rationality—to the complete neglect, if not outright derision, of the unconscious. This is disastrous not only because such psychic amputation cripples people, contributing to feelings of emptiness, insatiability, depression, and anxiety, but also because within that castoff unconscious—in intuition, in dreams—dwell ideas, solutions, and utterly fresh ways of perceiving and understanding that we need urgently in an era of unraveling and transition. I, like all writers, know the power of the unconscious because it’s where I’ve gone for decades for my fiction writing. I know how boundless that realm is, how explosive with energy and light; I know my unconscious is eons ahead of my intellect, worlds larger in vision than my rational mind. This is exactly where we’ll find the materials and the fuel for that transformation of psyche I’m talking about. And our very business as artists is trafficking between the conscious and the unconscious; indeed, we are one of the very last groups in this culture who have a sanctioned day-to-day relationship with our unconscious, with our dreams and intuition.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 17:54:44 +0000
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