The career novelist

THE CAREER NOVELIST

as diverse as his religious allegory Round the Bend and his great apoc-

alyptic novel OH the Beach. He did not try to be a novelist he was not.

He was true to himself. That he was also so popular was not, I sus-

pect, an acccident.

Being truthful, recording and reflecting upon the world as one

sees it: that, to me, is the ultimate privilege of the novelist. Perhaps

it is also a responsibility. We readers, I think, are in turn obligated

to judge according to a high standard. Whether an author is a main-

stream voice or a genre storyteller, it is our task to demand that

authors give us their best. If we settle for what is easy and common,

what is only passingly entertaining, we are surrendering control of

our dreams.

Ultimately, we may also be diminishing our freedom.

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