Crime writer Patricia Cornwell lost her readers interest after she came out of the closet, not because she is gay but because she started to write more about the lives of her characters than she did about the plot.
I see now that we like the surface of things. We don't want to delve to deep into revelation and pain. We don't have the time for catharsis. We need to keep going in a delusion that everything is all right when the truth is that the truth is too much to handle. We'd prefer not to have to step in or even investigate the holes in the sidewalk.
We're American and everything needs to be beautiful and easy. We don't want any hassles and we don't want to pay any fines. We want what we want when we want it. And we want it to float into our hands as we float on a cloud.
Shall I smooth over the holes in this journal? In truth, I get depressed. That's a part of the truth of my life.
Maybe I need to veil it to some degree.
Today's Quote
If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.
-Catherine Aird
Beliefnet.com
1 comment:
Hmmm, I want to comment, but I don't find the right words easily.
Patricia Cornwell wrote a book that seems to lose its purpose, in her soul-searching prose. I don't think it a fair comment to say "we" don't want to delve too deep, or that we need everything pretty and tidy,(after all, no one who reads P.C. does it for "pretty") we DO read her books for the nitty gritty murder mystery's that most of them are. when an author swerves from her traditional genre, some readers will lose interest, others may try her out. I like her books for the depth of her charactors,as well as the marvelous detail of forensic medicine, and the twisty plots. I am a big fan. And I was disapointed a couple of books ago! And I'm not a shallow reader, but the book wandered, and didnt seem to know what it was trying to be. I've just finished "Trace" her latest. I enjoyed every page, I hope she didnt feel , while writing it, that she was going backwards in order to make the book sell. Perhaps it's a matter of wanting to know what we're getting, when we choose a book, for nitty gritty murder I choose Patricia Cornwell, for soul searching I choose Tuesdays with Morrie.
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