(no subject)

"Perhaps my middle brow is showing but this novel, and the criticisms of it, make me wonder about the way we think about what is literary, as if plot is gauche. As if literary fiction should be about creating a mood. As if creating a story with twists and turns should be left to popular fiction. Reflecting this division, it seems to me that the adjectives applied to literary fiction are unduly stationary - 'haunting', 'spare', 'beautiful', 'bleak' - while adjectives implying pace and movement are reserved for potboilers - 'rollicking', 'page turning', 'sweeping'."

- Lisa Pyror, reviewing The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas in the SMH

(no subject)

Another rather strange idea from evolutionary psychology: a couple of scientists suggest an evolutionary advantage to depression. That it helps us think analytically, encouraging us to withdraw and obsess when faced with difficult social problems.

My own experience makes it very difficult to accept that it has anything other than a catastrophic effect on thinking. Depressed, I can't focus on anything, I can't remember things, I am unable to make even simple decisions - and I don't care.

Even if the scientists are onto something, the evolutionary advantage would have to be spectacular to balance the immense damage caused by a condition which kills the appetite, the libido, and sometimes the patient. Frankly, if there was such an advantage, I think it'd be blaringly obvious.

I think these guys have got sadness and depression mixed up. Which is rather like confusing a punch in the nose with decapitation.