Jan 12, 2022
T.C. Merrill’s debut novel, Minor Indignities, is an
evocative portrayal of the vanity of undergraduate life at an Ivy
League university. Its protagonist, a freshman consumed with what
others think of him intellectually, socially and sexually, only
makes a fool of himself the more he strains to impress. The novel
ultimately becomes a richness of embarrassments whose final
catastrophe illustrates the saying of St. Bernard: “Humiliation is
the way to humility.”
Merrill joins the show to talk about his novel, his essay “The
Situation of the Catholic Novelist”, Waugh’s Brideshead
Revisited, how a fiction writer should approach depicting
sexuality, the relation between art and emotion, and René
Girard.
Watch interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xH1Fm6C9i7E
Links
Minor Indignities
https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p103/minor-indignities-by-trevor-cribben-merrill.html
“The Situation of the Catholic Novelist”
https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p116/The-Situation-of-the-Catholic-Novelist.html
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