Re: read OR write

jason varsoke (jjv@caesun.msd.ray.com)
Tue, 27 Jul 1999 09:32:51 -0400 (EDT)

   On your side, Scottie, you have Mark Twain: "He stopped reading all
together, much to the benefit of his creativity."  Of course, against you
is the advice of Aristotle, Longinius, Johnson, Eliot, Pound, Bloom and
even Steven King, to name just a modicum.  If you really want the whole
argument scan through the first chapter of John Warner's infinitly
valuable text _The Art of Fiction_.  The short form is: Read the greats.
Imitate for a while.  Strike out on your own when you've figured out what
the have done.  Only then can you contribute to this continium of dialog
we call the literary canon.
   Honestly it's the same idea as asking subscribers to this list to read
the archives.  You have to know what's said before to say something new.
Or as TS Eliot states, "You must know the rules, in order to break them."
If you're still into that modernist gig. 

   So that's why we writers read.  Not to mention there's some good shit
out there.

-j