Generation Bubble

The Unobtrusive Dinosaur: A Review of Wallace Shawn's Essays

Shawn’s book is not a self-help manual or a how-to guide, and he offers no precepts. Instead, he reveals his own struggle to make a life and the uneasy peace that he may or may not have found. The result is a demonstration that a life grounded in reality and guided by a continuous questioning of morality, reason and art can offer a true hope (a hope that is not reduced to a slogan beneath the smiling face of one of our “leaders”) that life and humanity are still possible. But Shawn is resolute that art, morality, or reason alone cannot offer this hope.