Into the Fire

Yesterday I spoke of the freedom in the prose of some of the classic novels. As in every generation, different authors will be celebrated as the best of the old writers. And, as expected, some will gush over Hemingway while others will rave about Fitzgerald or Faulkner. I only prefer one of the three, and I have read the other two – not all they've written but some.

Here's my opinion, for what it's worth – which isn't much. Devoted readers will not squawk about the length of a novel. They'll only complain if a long novel isn't interesting or written well according to their particular tastes. The length is irrelevant. Longer is often better to them. Casual readers prefer quick reads and their preferences as to style vary. They have little patience for dull storylines and think nothing of tossing a book or not finishing it. They've got a whole lot of other life to live so if they decide to read a novel, it better meet their standards whatever those are. 

Somewhere in between those types of readers are the ones who would like to have the time to read a long novel but consider reading secondary to all their other demanding tasks. Then there are the strict genre-specific readers who have stacks of supermarket paperbacks piled next to their chairs, each one when finished passed along to a like-minded friend or relative. There are those who want their fiction reading to be light and entertaining, leaving very little residual memory. And there are those who read from the past, preferring older novels to contemporary versions.

It seems readers of the classics invest in those stories while some readers of contemporary fiction rush through them or squeeze them into those short pockets of time allotted for a book.

I'm a contemporary fiction reader and writer, but sometimes it's freeing to go back to a few of the classics and remember the depth they offered from their perspectives of humanity.

Father, let us be true when we write, honoring you somehow. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.