I am glad to see that you are reading outside the New York Centric Literary Industrial Complex (NYCLIC) bubble. I love reading Joseph Wambaugh, John Burdett, Harry Crews, and many others who not considered “important” or social redeeming today. Sometimes you just want to be entertained. Your question, “Simply put, has the quality of writing, or perhaps more broadly even, the quality of our language in general, gotten worse?” is an important one. The writing published by the NYCLIC, of which I am a member, has definitely gotten worse. The obvious problem is that publishers are terrified to publish anything that might offend anyone. However, an equally large problem is that editors aren’t what they used to be. While I listen to my “official” editors, I hire Peter Dimmock, a great editor, and pay him out of my own pocket. In addition to editing 5 of my books, Peter edited Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom. In addition to working as senior editor at Random House and Columbia University Press, he wrote (A Short Rhetoric For Leaving the Family and George Anderson: Notes for a Love Song in Imperial Time). Writers are going to write, even if they don’t live in Brooklyn, or NYC. If you ever want a serious evaluation of your writing, hire Peter. He will know and tell what you are really trying to say—it’s spooky—and that is what makes a great editor great.
Eve, I loved this review because people completely ignore writers like Zane Grey these days. Though beautiful, the language he used has become strange to people born after the turn of this century. Also, the assumption that moral values are universal has become old-fashioned. This saddens me. Seeing a young, intellectually curious person like yourself delve into these older, unfashionable books tugs at my heartstrings. There is HOPE for younger generations, at least here and there.
Eve
I am glad to see that you are reading outside the New York Centric Literary Industrial Complex (NYCLIC) bubble. I love reading Joseph Wambaugh, John Burdett, Harry Crews, and many others who not considered “important” or social redeeming today. Sometimes you just want to be entertained. Your question, “Simply put, has the quality of writing, or perhaps more broadly even, the quality of our language in general, gotten worse?” is an important one. The writing published by the NYCLIC, of which I am a member, has definitely gotten worse. The obvious problem is that publishers are terrified to publish anything that might offend anyone. However, an equally large problem is that editors aren’t what they used to be. While I listen to my “official” editors, I hire Peter Dimmock, a great editor, and pay him out of my own pocket. In addition to editing 5 of my books, Peter edited Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom. In addition to working as senior editor at Random House and Columbia University Press, he wrote (A Short Rhetoric For Leaving the Family and George Anderson: Notes for a Love Song in Imperial Time). Writers are going to write, even if they don’t live in Brooklyn, or NYC. If you ever want a serious evaluation of your writing, hire Peter. He will know and tell what you are really trying to say—it’s spooky—and that is what makes a great editor great.
Eve, I loved this review because people completely ignore writers like Zane Grey these days. Though beautiful, the language he used has become strange to people born after the turn of this century. Also, the assumption that moral values are universal has become old-fashioned. This saddens me. Seeing a young, intellectually curious person like yourself delve into these older, unfashionable books tugs at my heartstrings. There is HOPE for younger generations, at least here and there.