Ever a Reader
Charles Glendinning (CGlendin@AOL.COM)
Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:02:16 EDT
But Sir:
The person who wrote concerning the injustices of poor law, boarding schools,
debtors prisons, and all the other "satire du jour" could not possibly have
read only fiction. He had an extremely pointed understanding of current
events and debated even his hosts in America on the outrageous injustices of
slavery. If fiction were his only sustenance, he would have suffered the lot
of most of the popular writers of the late 20th century, who seem so rapt in
describing a scene, they forget that the scene they are describing has no
substance, no relationship to any message whatsoever -- and so flows the rest
of the novel, I am afraid. Most of the books I have read lately fall into
this category and I am left at the last page saying, "What is the point? I
have just been raped of valuable time."
These books fall into the category of literary cotton candy, and that category
swells daily.
I think most of today's writing IS IN FACT written for the ordinary man but
what we seem to be doing here is blurring the distinction between FORM and
SUBSTANCE.
The form of your writing, is indeed for the common man -- of that day -- but
the substance always seemed to call us to a higher standard -- to elevate.
Today, I think, we have lusted after that which can't feed us and so have
atro-feed R branes so we dont understand so good no more. ...and the authors
of today are only too glad to pander to our addiction. So now, even the form
is unattainable to the common man. Great pity. I have never read an author
that makes me cry but Dickens -- and that emotion flows from the substance
beneath your form.
Charles Glendinning