What’s interesting, of course, is how modern life could easily be seen in the opposite way—as an ever-expanding domain of individuality and self-expression.
I want to propose a fine recent example of the gesamtkuntsler, the total artist, in Paul de Jong, the cellist, composer, collagist, archivist, and former member of the band The Books.
Leïla Marouane’s 2010 novel The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris layers identity upon identity as it unravels the story of an Algerian-born Parisian banker.