What a sad end the reading public has come to if Scott is now considered to be too wordy to read. I, for one, am heartily tired of sitting down for a good read only to have to do the author's work by filling in the blanks left by his/her inability or unwillingness to describe the characters or the scene.
I find myself setting many books aside because they seem to be unfinished. There is a grand rush to the denouement that I fail to understand. Whatever happened to setting out a feast of words to take your reader to a different realm? Writers today seem to be presenting us with half-hour sit-coms, hour-long dramas and the occasional two-hour feature length novel. Heaven forbid that a writer exceeds the allotted 225 pages!
We may well live in a world that is turning at breakneck speed. All the more reason to take the time to immerse ourselves in the soothing waters of a well-thought out, thoroughly developed story. Why must it be read in an evening? Why can we no longer savor the joy of returning to our book and having the angst of our day washed away by skill of a Scott?
I, like Julie, discovered Scott at a tender age, long before I could pick at an author’s work. I wandered through his castles, sat in the stands at his tournaments and grew to love his characters as I came to know them. His vivid word pictures remain with me to this day, still brightening my sometimes mundane existence. I wonder how long some of his present day critics will be remembered?
Paulette and Quilt, the Amazing
[This message has been edited by Gooddog (edited March 13, 2001).]
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