Books About Bad Good

“Patriarchy and misogyny are no more terms that belong to criticism of the novel than are, say, baldness or shortness of stature. A novelist might be a misogynist if he chooses. Ditto a misanthropist. Ditto a hater of straights or gays. Ditto an antisemite. It hardly needs arguing, you would think, that the more cautious we are grown in our transactional politics, the more grateful we should be when our novelists enable us, imaginatively — by way, if you like, of experimental play, as a sort of moral dry-run — to show contempt for them.”
 — In praise of books that lack redemption. (Includes an interesting take on Jane Austen.)