Fay Weldon Q & A

       In The Washington Post Carole Burns has a Q & A as Fay Weldon remembers life upstairs and downstairs
       Among the interesting responses:

Why did you return to the historical novel ?

It was a great relief. Contemporary fiction is very difficult to write. Times change so fast, it's hard to get a handle on what's going on. And novels take quite a long time to get out. By the time you've got one done, nobody's interested.

       (Seems to me you're focusing on the wrong things if your novel becomes out of date in the time it takes to get from manuscript to bookstore, but what do I know ?)
       And she's pretty down on the novel-form in general:

It seems to me that the novel has become just entertainment.

       And:

Now we live in a digital age. And it's an age of disambiguity. Art deals with the ambiguous. And I don't think language carries the weight it once did. The resonance and beauty of language is, I think, not particularly understood by readers. So I'm not finding fault with writers, only with readers.

       (Surely writers share some blame if they can't convince readers, no ?)