Critical Essay | Critical Review by Edward Abbey

SOURCE: "Memories of an Indian Childhood," in Harper's, Vol. 254, No. 1521, February, 1977, pp. 94-5.

Abbey was an American novelist and nonfiction writer. In the following, he offers a positive review of The Names.

Momaday on Literature, Language, and Reality:

[Irving Howe once] said, "Any graduate student can deal with symbols, but it takes a first-rate intelligence to deal with the surfaces of literature." And I think he's right. Literature is a superficial thing, finally, but that doesn't mean it is not important. It means that it is a reflection. Language is symbolic. It is superficial in the sense that words are reflections of reality rather than realities in themselves. And I think the writer has to understand that. That there is the reality, and then around that there is a circumference of appearances, and literature has more to do with the appearances than with the reality. Literature is the appearance rather than reality. That's...
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