A Mixed Diet of Attention

from TLS May 27 2011

One of my favorite authors, Julian Barnes wrote in a Commentary piece in the TLS:

It is bad for a writer to become either the sole property of the general reader, or the private fiefdom of scholars. A writer is most usefully kept alive after death by a mixed diet of attention: from the "ordinary" reader, the living writer, the professional critic, the academic theorist, and the amateur scholar. Paradoxically, the greatest writers are often less intimidating to the outsider and the freelance.

After hearing in the past two weekends how academic theorists deal with authors, I agree wholeheartedly with Barnes. I would like to kept alive after death by a mixed diet too.

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