Flaubert poses as the outsider with insider information who excoriates a reality as degraded and mendacious. It is as if the literary standing of the author in the world of imagination and fiction paradoxically grants him a greater access to the truth than would be available in the falseness of empirical existence.

— Russell Berman Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007)

More quotes by Russell Berman

Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007)

Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007)

Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007)

Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007)

Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007)

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