Literature in an age of endless work

Abstract

This piece makes the case for the novel’s allegiance to a way of life that includes both work and contemplation. I point this out in response to some recent arguments that situate reading in one framework or another: a professional or a ›lay‹ context; a critical or a literary one. Bringing in the results of a recent ethnographic study that shows even literary academics wishing for some reading time away from work, and some novels that situate themselves at the end of the working day, I suggest that the best case for literature’s professional and practical continuation lies, ironically, in our political defence of a mode of non-work.