Misleading to call it a move- ment, and still worse to think of it as a program, but we now have seen enough minor liter- ary eruptions to suspect that it is a cultural symptom that bears some reflection: this burst of novel-writing from people who liave lived the conceptual life, the life of method and ar- gument, who often carry leather cases, or who give public lectures and contribute essays to learned journals. In tlie past five years, some of the world's leading literary critics liave turned...