The adjective ‘shell-shocked’ is a recent journalistic invention, one that ignores the original trauma as a shorthand for being confused or disoriented. It is not only carelessly used with respect to the original pain but also misapplied: those ‘shell-shocked’ often used tropes of the grotesque rather than of confusion to communicate their experience.

#literature | #Blunden | #language, #trauma

Are there limits to acts of the sympathetic imagination? Are specific, extremely physical or emotional experiences simply beyond the reach of the aesthetic? This is not a topic writers want to confront. Doing so opens up a debate that moves us away from a simple version of empathy towards reciprocity.

#literature | #Coetzee | #imagination

Orwellian is not an adjective to use lightly. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' is much more than it seems. And a great deal can be missed in pursuit of simple ways to describe the contemporary world.

#literature | #Orwell | #language