Technology and melancholia (and the novel)

I haven’t read Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, but many people I respect have recommended it to me, and I am always on the lookout for his work. I just found this piece on technology and the novel (and melancholia–and yes, I look for any excuse to write the word “melancholia”) via aldaily.com.

I know which side I’m on: the more books I write, the more convinced I become that what we encounter in a novel is not selves, but networks; that what we hear in poems is (to use the language of communications technology) not signal but noise. The German poet Rilke had a word for it: Geräusch, the crackle of the universe, angels dancing in the static.

Keep your eyes peeled for McCarthy’s next novel, entitled C, which is supposed to be published here in the US on September 7, and which has just been named to the Booker Prize longlist.

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