When Tao Lin asked Ben Lerner about his new novel’s epigraph, Lerner touched on the merits of the parable:
I think the parable is a peculiar way of saying that redemption is immanent whether or not it’s imminent, that the world to come is in a sense always already here, if still unavailable. I find this idea powerful for several reasons. For one thing, it’s an antidote to despair.
The interview centers on Lerner’s second novel, 10:04, and they hit some parallel targets; from the caginess of anti-intellectualism, to the inherent truths in Goodnight, Moon.
