So that's what literature is!

[doire]

Linked by bookslut an article in the Grauniad talking about A level set books contains, in passing, a definition of literature that I wish thesaurus swallowing writers would take heed of.

... It has the winning combination of apparent simplicity (the narrator has a limited vocabulary and intellectual horizon) and real complexity (the better the reader, the more is to be inferred). In contrast, the winner of last year's Booker, John Banville, has left A-level setters cold. Too many allusions and too strange a vocabulary, too complete an indulgence in "style".

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I had a heart-stopping moment when reading the article and thinking that passage might turn out to be talking about Margaret Atwood. I am so very glad it's about a writer with *real* complexity.