Culture

Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - C

Reading Real Estate by Deborah Levy, I try to define culture.

Culture: the unspoken way a community works including beliefs, values, mannerisms, taboos, ways of being.

Unspoken.

The people inside the culture are guided by it as if by a mysterious force. Think of how the tides are governed by the moon.

Levy’s culture – her many cultures – shows on every page. She is revealing her way of being in the world.

In literature, culture is not the conscious detail written. Rather it’s what is revealed unconsciously, a force operating above our head.

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