Vidal asserts that literary theory and those who purvey it, namely academics, has supplanted literature itself as the main focus of literary studies and that writers' lives, not their works, are of greatest interest to the public. He recounts his statement that the serious novel has lost its audience because it has been pushed off the stage by television and film as popular culture becomes ever more visual and semi-literate. In this environment, Vidal welcomes the publication of Ford Madox Ford by Alan Judd, "himself a lively writer with an attractive conversational style...who never bores."
Ford Madox Ford was born Hueffer in England in 1873, but the family later changed its name to Ford because of anti-Teutonic sentiment. Nevertheless, Ford/Hueffer was tall, blond and blue-eyed but "something about him was off-putting,".....
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