The following is a letter to the editor published in the Nov./Dec. issue of Poets&Writers
David Long's "Stuff: The Power of the Tangible" (Sept./Oct. 2002) while invaluable and penetrating, does not address an interesting concomitant question: Why are there so many great works of prose fiction that do not "write about stuff"?
Jane Austen, Stendhal, Henry James, and Marcel Proust have all created palpable fictional universes without cultivating the kind of physical detail and concreteness found in Long's examples. Reread PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and you will notice that Austen's. . . description of Darcy's estate is quite general. Stendhal renders the Battle of Waterloo in THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA with very few particulars. Likewise, neither James nor Proust are much interested in naming objects or listing things for the sake of it.
A work of literature is given life by the reader's memory and imagination. Flat and mundane details of the sort cited by Long can stifle the quickening act of the mind we call reading. Lady Murasaki, and other masters allow us to "see" entire physical worlds for ourselves by the power of their suggestion.
Edmund de Chasca
Senior Editor, Boulevard
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