The Novel (n.) develops authentically, however broad, only as a passage from mastery to slavery.
The Novel (n.) at last reflects the real hierarchy of desire when the mediator stands in the foreground and the object recedes.
The Novel (n.) creates no new values and, unlike the romantic's Prometheus, has to reconquer with great effort the values of earlier novels.
The Novel (n.) at its greatest exposes the image of himself the writer wished to project, and asks why; a mediocre novel simply projects it.
The Novel (n.) was Stendhal's only original thought: the moment he stepped out of his characters, the ghost of the Other began to haunt him again.
The Novel (n.) does a justice that lies beyond pessimistic psychology and romantic idolatry, and unlike moralizing hypocrisy it is concrete and verifiable in the work itself.
The Novel (n.) at its greatest springs from an obsession that has been transcended, the novelist's self-examination merging with his morbid attention to his mediator.
The Novel (n.) at its greatest is ahead of society, because the novelist's intense desire carries him to the top of the social edifice, where ontological sickness is worst and later spreads downward.