Downward
At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, one development I cannot help but mourn is the devolution of the art of fiction. Currently, my favorite book is The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. This tragic 1905 story chronicles the gradual descent of a likeable society beauty, Lily Bart, and is packed with gems. By ‘gems’ I mean beautifully honed passages that reveal startling human insights, or remarkably unique and succinct descriptions.
This passage describes Seldon, an intelligent, introspective man, contemplating the seemingly frivolous Lily as he struggles to understand why he is increasingly drawn to her:
“…the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external, as though a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high finish; and was it not possible that the material was fine but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?”
Or this bit describing Bertha, the high-maintenance little diva whose calculated betrayal will trigger Lily’s ultimate downfall.
“Her small, pale face seemed the mere setting of a pair of dark exaggerated eyes, of which the visionary gaze contrasted curiously with her self-assertive tone and gestures, so that, as one of her friends observed, she was like a disembodied spirit who took up a great deal of room.”
Fast forward 100 years to the popular and admittedly enjoyable but terribly inferior Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
“Am going to be top-flight journalist and gradually build up more and more work and extra money so can give up job and merely sit on sofa with laptop on knee. Hurrah!”
How to even respond to such a comparison? I’ll return to Wharton:
“Grotesque? Yes—and tragic—like most absurdities. There’s nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.”
