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If this is so, if to read a book as it should be read calls for the rarest qualities of imagination, insight, and judgment, you may perhaps conclude that literature is a very complex art and that it is unlikely that we shall be able, even after a lifetime of reading, to make any valuable contribution to its criticism. We must remain readers; we shall not put on the further glory that belongs to those rare beings who are also critics. But still we have our responsibilities as readers and even our importance. The standards we raise and the judgments we pass steal into the air and become part of the atmosphere which writers breathe as they work. An influence is created which tells upon them even if it never finds its way into print. And that influence, if it were well instructed, vigorous and individual and sincere, might be of great value now when criticism is necessarily in abeyance; when books pass in review like the procession of animals in a shooting gallery, and the critic has only one second in which to load and aim and shoot and may well be pardoned if he mistakes rabbits for tigers, eagles for barndoor fowls, or misses altogether and wastes his shot upon some peaceful cow grazing in a further field. If behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people reading for the love of reading, slowly and unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy and yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that would be an end worth reaching.
5 comments:
Dwight -
Thanks for this - I'm certain it will prove very helpful once I manage to get further into the novel. I'm still pretty far up at the top of the outline at the moment, but making progress...
I'm hoping they will be helpful as you go along, which is why I was trying to get them out early. The major chapters tend to run together when looking back on them.
Glad to hear of the progress!
"the blabber of Seville" is good. Apt, too. All the foreshadowing in The Honeymoon is admirable. I just wish someone would put it out in two volumes. The Penguin Classics 800-page edition I'm reading is a big, difficult object to deal with. But worth the struggle, yes, yes.
I'm glad you're enjoying it. This is my third time and I was concerned I would be bored. Fortunately I was wrong. Even with the...well, the heft isn't too much of a problem for me. Density might be a better term.
And the imbiber and blabber have been two of my favorites so far.
Thanks for stirring up interest. Starting next week I'll create a post that links to posts on the book.
I'm getting ma femme a copy to read as well. It surprises me that the book's now out of print. You can still get new copies of the Penguin Classics, but I tried to order a copy from the local university bookstore at lunch today and I was out of luck. I found an online dealer with a used library copy. Such a good novel out of print! A real shame.
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