WRITER AND PUBLIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 471, 2 July 1948, Page 9

WRITER AND PUBLIC

Sir,-Many thanks to E. A. W. Smith for explaining what it is that spoils a fiction writer’s chances of writing a masterpiece; the necessity of eating, just as he eats, and therefore expecting to be paid for his work. He makes use of Virgil to put me outside of his appeal for better stories. I say that Virgil got his answer from Samuel Johnson: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." If Mr. Smith removes from his shelves all the fictional masterpieces written for profit, who will be left? Not O. Henry for one, and yet your correspondent classes him as a genius (which is, of course, a fact). Perhaps the explanation is that Virgil's ideas were suited to seventy years before Christ, whereas O. Henry lived in this century. That there, is no such thing as a new plot is not news. What I said of the women’s magazines was that they specialise in sentimental tripe, and it is not a case of what you can achieve, as Mr. Smith says, but what will sell. I agree with him about the artistry of Dickens and Hawthorne, and will even add A.

A. Milne to please him, but tell me what chance have these got with fhe ordinary reading public in New Zealand? In, conclusion, don’t blame the writers for what you get; blame the editors who accept it, and, in turn, the public which demands it-without the latter being fussy as to whether it was paid for and earned a crust for its author. The amount he gets in New Zealand is harmless enough anyway.

LEO

WATERS

(Christchurch). |

(This correspondence is now, closed.--Ed.)