Word: reader
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...Johnson has mastered it. One of a handful of young German writers (TIME, Jan. 4) who are just now working the literary equivalent of Germany's economic miracle, Johnson, 29, has produced a provocative novel full of cryptic clues and calculated silences, inviting the reader to fill in the blank spaces with his own imagination. The result is a remarkably intimate look at life in East Germany, a finely shaded inquiry into the small tensions of a divided world...
...known to describe how many thousands of words our correspondents filed to us on a given story, and how many books a researcher worked her way through to provide background for a writer. But we never brag about how many words it takes to bring the story to the reader. We would rather be praised for economy...
...chamber is arranged as a hall of justice: in it an office worker, satanic in black robes, buys the illusion that he is a judge and cruelly extracts a confession of a prostitute (Ruby Dee). A second chamber is arranged as a chapel: in it a gas-meter reader, in miter and chasuble, buys the illusion that he is a bishop and lovingly receives a confession of a prostitute. A third chamber is arranged as a stable: in it a milkman, bristling with chest lettuce, buys the illusion that he is a cavalry general and prepares to mount his whorse...
...time, but we are given to understand he will soon settle down to life with the other seals. One of his friends, however, is moved by the event to chuck the good life and become a monk. The motivation of this holy man may puzzle the reader, though it is suggested that life in a monastery is at least one way out of Pasadena-as drink is said to be the quickest way out of Philadelphia...
Critics will never admit it, and the reader's good sense denies it, but sometimes bad writing is best. Good writing would never have produced Eliza crossing the ice. Scarlet and Rhett. Ivanhoe. Amber, James Bond, Arrowsmith, Queeg's ball bearings, or any of the Bobbsey twins. The best and most enjoyable bad writing ever done by an American is Hemingway's in To Have and Have Not, but when some anthologist pastes together the definitive collection of Great Moments from Bad Novels, he should give a secondary dedication, at least, to Frederic Wakeman...