Despite atrophied interest in the novel by general readers in the United States, and the historical inevitability of its survival primarily for a small group of writers and hardened readers, theorists of the "new novel" forge blindly ahead. "The large public which used to find pleasure in prose fictions prefers movies, television, journalism and books of 'fact,'" Vidal notes. The title and presentation of a novel is more important to its success in the marketplace than its subject or writer, he observes. Books about doctors, the Kennedys and gruesome murders are more popular than imaginative fiction. The impact of academia upon literature has been to supplant the exegesis in the reader's mind as more important than the original work under examination.
Several French writers including, Alain.....
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