Karen Brennan: Beyond Accessibility (July 2007)

Karen Brennan interrogates the idea that contemporary creative writing must be “accessible.”  Through readings of Moby Dick by Herman Melville, “Cockroaches in Autumn” by Lydia Davis, “The Garden” by Andrew Marvell and The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard, Brennan argues that the enigmatic is a crucial part of what makes art important to us; she considers how meaning can be made not through eliding the mysterious or difficult to interpret, but through acknowledging and embracing it.