Posted by Peter Hyland on March 29, 2001 at 13:44:32 from 213.122.19.222:
In Reply to: Re: Literary Executors posted by Malcolm Temple on March 28, 2001 at 21:44:23:
The world moves on, Malcolm, but AR's text doesn't. This is a continual problem in the literary field. An author writes for his/her time, and in the absence of reincarnation there is nothing we can do about that. It seems to me that attempts at 'updating' and 'sequels' are nearly always doomed to fail for this reason, and can sometimes be ill-thought-out and incongruous. If you object to Ransome's period setting and dialogue, then you should read (or write) a modern novel expressed in contemporary language. You might say that, on a 'freedom' issue, the Lit Execs ought to allow people to fail in this way, and as time goes on maybe they will. But for the time being I'm on their side.