Brigid Brophy's novels have often been described as 'brilliantly written': a judgment which can have done her sales little good. ('Don't bother with that book - it's brilliantly written!') The notion that a writer ought actually to be able to write as distinct from slapping down words on paper is a dying one. Some far grander potency is required if fiction is to compete at all effectively with television. Television, on the other hand, can afford to be stylish on occasion (and occasionally is) since there is not the faintest doubt of its virility, its power (for as long or short as is desired) to capture and absorb its public. Television is not on the way to destroying fiction (which is what much of it is), it is only going to shove writing, 'style', a little further back into the darkness where, one sometimes thinks, true art is most at home, or which it at the least needs in large doses. Or is just going to get anyway.

LRB 21 February 1980 | PDF Download