Word: gardner
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ERIE STANLEY GARDNER...
THROUGH WHAT he says in these essays Gardner is identifying himself with a long tradition of critics like Matthew Arnold who tried to diagnose the ills of their societies. And Gardner's calls for "Beauty, Truth and Goodness" are not far removed from Arnold's famous celebration of "sweetness and light." But Gardner lacks the formal power, the rhetorical skill which Arnold employed to make the abstract palatable and comprehensible. Gardner's book is structureless. The divisions between chapters are arbitrary, and just about the only overall element of the book that seems planned is the appearance of Thor...
...Gardner's organization is baffling, at least his style is endearing. The sense of mythic wonder that fills his books Grendel and Jason and Medea is present here in the form of vignettes and metaphors; and even when he rattles on about the good and the true, Gardner never pontificates, never becomes self-righteous. Even when what he says sounds like it would suit a preacher among the unbaptized, his manner remains that of the elderly raconteur, sitting by the fire with a mug of ale and a pipe...
...Indeed, Gardner is at his best when he's telling a story. At one point in On Moral Fictionhe leaves the aesthetic debate for a moment and begins a simple fable, to illustrate a point. The effect startles; we suddenly realize what Gardner could be doing all this time--telling stories, like Grendel...
...Moral Fiction is worth reading, if only to learn what one of the finest contemporary novelists has to say about his colleagues. One can take from it these insights, a few anecdotes, and perhaps a sense of Gardner himself. But, as Gardner repeats, only art--not criticism--can embody the eternal verities, those elusive ideas of "Beauty, Truth and Goodness." On Moral Fictionfails because Gardner valiantly tries to write non-fiction about abstract concepts. But, he himself agrees, fiction alone can do justice to them...