#EASY WRITER BOOK PLUS#

He was irritated by the giddy approval of highbrows like Nicolson, and, in 1944, published an article in this magazine that contained some disparaging remarks about the mystery genre. Nicolson’s point was not that Agatha Christie is better than George Eliot but that readers who seek out mystery novels are looking to escape not from life but from literature, from the “pluperfect tenses of the psychical novel.” Nicolson was speaking on behalf of those intellectuals who, “weary unto death of introspective and psychological literature,” simply yearned for a good story. In 1929, the eminent Milton scholar Marjorie Nicolson, the first female president of Phi Beta Kappa, described a dinner party rescued from the brink of dullness when the desperate hostess asked a distinguished scholar to name “the most significant book of recent years.” The great man replied, “I never can make up my mind between ‘The Bellamy Trial’ and ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.’ ” That, you can imagine, got the room buzzing. Chesterton, the creator of the plump, priestly sleuth Father Brown, lamented, “Many people do not realize that there is such a thing as a good detective story it is to them like speaking of a good devil.”īut good devils make for good company, and, in time, bookish people did begin to speak of them. Genre writers were not exactly unmindful of this. You could either go to an amusement park or trundle off to a museum, ride a roller coaster or stroll among the Flemish Masters. And part of the pleasure we derive from them is the knowledge that we could be reading something better, something that, in the words of Arnold, reflects “the best that has been thought and said in this world.”įor the longest time, there was little ambiguity between literary fiction and genre fiction: one was good for you, one simply tasted good. Such writers-commercial and genre novelists-aim at delivering less rarefied pleasures. Of course, it’s one thing for a poet who contains multitudes to become a literary dude it’s another for writers who deal with lawmen, criminals, private detectives, spies, aliens, ghosts, fallen heroines, and killer cars. Matthiessen), and you, too, can become respectable. He was wrong, and therein lies a lesson for all hardworking scribblers: stick around long enough, develop a cult following, gain the approval of one or two literary dudes (in Whitman’s case: Henry James, Ezra Pound, and F. Arnold reaffirmed all that was “rich, hefted, lousy, reeking with delicacy, refinement, elegance, prettiness, propriety, criticism, analysis.” He was, in short, “one of the dudes of literature.” Whitman probably figured that his own gnarly hirsuteness would save him from becoming a dude. “He will not be missed,” Whitman told a friend. When Matthew Arnold keeled over, in April, 1888, while hurrying to catch the Liverpool tram, Walt Whitman managed to contain his grief. 'I think every person who wants to do it can do it.Orwell had a weakness for escapist fiction, for “good bad books.” Illustration by John Cuneo 'It was the ride of my lifetime, something I always wanted to do,' he said. But when the time comes, he'll take another trip, on a bigger bike, with a bigger budget. 'The Oregon coastline was so beautiful, I can't describe it,' he added.īeurman is taking care of his sick mother. The oft-married Beurman's favorite places were Provincetown, Mass., and Vermilion, Ohio. 'I wrote it in longhand, and hired someone to type it. 'I ran home and started writing, and I couldn't stop,' said Beurman, who will sign his books at Hastings at 2 p.m. He didn't actually plan on telling his story in book form until he met a man who had a book published.

#EASY WRITER BOOK PLUS#

'But I'd like to do it with more money.'īeurman writes about the road, the rain, the people, his struggles with a balky Plus Card (Warning: Plus Cards don't work in all ATMs, he writes), the scenery and the people. 'I'd like to do it again,' said Beurman, who worked for 14 years at CF&I and retired from the Colorado Department of Corrections. Not counting the purchase of his bike, he spent $2,468, or $35.25 per day, on his 70-day adventure. Beurman kept a log, and much of what he wrote was how much he spent and where he stayed.

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