CORRESPONDENCE. "TRASHY" NOVELS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13899, 10 May 1909, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

"TRASHY" NOVELS.

To the Editor of the " Timaru Herald." Sir, —I have seen in one or two papers now this paragraph:— "It is pathetic, sometimes,'' ty see how people choose novels," remarked Dr Waddell in the course of an address at Dunedin. "Go down to the Athenaeum." he continued, " and watch people coming to select a novel. They have no conception at all—seven-eighths of them—of who is a good writer and who is a bad writer. They take up a book, turn ever the pages, and glance at it. If there's an illustration in it that attracts thorn, then they think they will'take that book, and they go home witli a book about •which they know nothing whatever." To me, this seems to mean that these people do not really "choose" novels at all. And it hits me square between the eyes. That is just the way I do, take them as they come; How can Ido better? Every public speaker, every minister, denounces "trashy" novels, and scolds people like me for reading them. But they don't tell us how to tell good novels from trash. They do tell us to read this book and that, and to read the works of sucli and such authors. Suppose we have read them, what then ? They don't tell us just .why we should read them, or what are the marks of good novels and of trash. That is what I want to know, the " points'' of a good novel. To tell us that this is a good one and that a bad one, is as useful as the prize tickets on the sheep pens at a show to people who haven't begun to know anything about sheep.. 1 would like to read the best sort pverv time, and be able to advise yoting friends what to read anil what not; but I want to be able to tell them why. Apart from that, I want to know myself. "Wilt you or some of your literary friends help us ignorant ones with a scale of valuation, a touch-stone, to enable us to know a "trashy" novel from a good one? —T am, etc.. A NOVEL HEADER.