Once again, we are not taking fiction SERIOUSLY enough
Bless us for our sins. A review of an autobiography of novelist Anthony Powell in the New York Times opines that having too much fun with a novelist’s work diminishes the importance of that work.
As hobbies go, literary cultism is innocent enough, but it does have a way of diminishing the perceived importance of its objects. It’s one thing to play games with Sherlock Holmes, another to do it with Jane Austen. Besides, the mere fact that a novelist’s works lend themselves to trivial pursuits is bound to make his ultimate seriousness suspect.
We are firmly of the opinion that Jane Austen would have approved of our innocent fun, and that we still take her work quite seriously indeed.
