![]() But one of the characteristics of prophets is that they do not concern themselves with imperfect things - which is probably yet another reason why, in the fractal, inherently human medium of the novel, they tend to run into problems. Surely there must be better ways to prophesy! Or, to take the other handle, surely there must be better, more human things for the novel to concern itself with. It’s like watching someone try to build a birdhouse with Thor’s hammer. Lawrence wrote, “Ah, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom / The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces.” This is in a poem, to be fair, although as anyone who has slogged through Kangaroo can tell you he goes on, and on, explicating his “new ideas” with an earnestness whose fit with the novel’s more human-sized conventions is precarious. For the novelist, however, such confidence is harder to come by. Poetry and prophecy? That feels like a better fit - for certainly there have been poets that decided their verses could level cities, just as there have been prophets who assumed that every word they said deserved to be memorized by kindergarteners. ![]() At first glance, few genres would seem to have less to do with one another than the novel and prophecy. ![]()
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