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Article: Comic Depth: Curtis White's Laughable Idea of Home.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- The Review of Contemporary Fiction
- Article date:
- June 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Review of Contemporary Fiction. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"And where there is laughing and gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything:"--so speaks the prejudice of this serious animal against all Joyful Wisdom--Well, then! Let us show that it is a prejudice!
Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom
The Nietzschean muse flatters the artist's ability to descend to the least dignified understanding of his life. For Nietzsche, laughter is the joyful antagonist of the Platonic Idea and in that regard the guarantor that philosophical thought will not drown in the depths of its own tendency toward abstraction. In The Idea of Home, a novel of buoyantly "joyful wisdom," Curtis White is an agent provocateur of this Nietzschean wisdom. ...